Asahikawa American English Conversation School
for June 2005
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
2005 June 30 Thursday.
I
got up early this morning and finished translating the Korean Old Story into
Japanese and English. I don't think I did a very good job, because I don't
know enough about Korean grammar yet, but I did the best I could given what I
know so far. However, when I got done translating the story, it didn't
make much sense so I must have made a lot of mistakes. When the Korean
class at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校) started at 13:00 today,
the teacher called each student by name and received their homework.
Everybody had done it. The remainder of the class was devoted to
conversation practice using simple phrases such as who, where, here, there, over
there etc. It was good practice. After that class was finished at
14:30, I drove back to my classroom for my first lesson at 15:00. Today, a
new girl and her family came to visit my classroom and take a trial lesson.
The had looked at this website and called right away to make an appointment.
The little girl told me that she had studied English in Sapporo. She knew
how to say the colors and how to count to
11,
and she could catch on quickly to the pace of today's lesson. The other
girls who are in this class have been coming here for about a 1 year so they are
already using my textbook 小学生で学ぶ米会話. They have advanced to page 3, and can
recite everything on pages 1 and 2 without looking at the textbook. I
think this new girl will be able to learn it also. After the last class
was finished at 20:00, I started printing out more business cards that advertise
this website. I will use them during a big PR blitz that will start at the
end of summer vacation during the last 10 days of August. Also, I need to
get back to work on translating the menu for the
Pub
Restaurant Ohfune. I only have about 1/3 of it finished. I was
invited to come and see the Nursing Schools Annual Sports Meet tomorrow but, I
can't go. I have too much work to do as mentioned above. I have gone
in years past and it was always held at the Taisetsu Arena. But this year,
it will be held at the Sogo Taiikukan in the Hanasaki Sports Facility.
Sorry, I can't make it this year! The photos on the left are ones that I
took in 2000 at the Taisetsu Arena. Have a nice time girls and boys!
Yes, boys too! In recent years, the number of boys attending nursing
schools has increased. I think one reason might be that it is much easier
to get a job after graduation, if they can pass the National Nursing
Examination. Every student that graduates from the two nursing schools
that I teach at gets a job promise. If they pass the national exam, then
they have a job, guaranteed. A very valuable thing in today's economy.
2005 June 29 Wednesday.
First class of the day was at 8:50 at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). Unlike last week when I woke up with a pounding headache and was unable to teach the class, today I felt alright. However, the classroom was hot and most of the students were half asleep. We worked on the second half of page two of my original textbook American English for all Occasions 日常表現. It was a telephone conversation dialogue with almost no new vocabulary and not very long. But even with that being the case, none of the students could memorize it today. High heat equals low motivation. When that class was finished at 10:20, I came back to my classroom and then walked across the street to the restaurant Steak Victoria for an early lunch. I was the first customer of the day and I got quick service. After lunch, I came back to my classroom and checked the latest news on the internet. At the same time, I was printing out business cards for this website. Classes started at 15:00 and went until 20:00. When all classes were finished, I went back to work on the translation of the Old Korean Story into Japanese and English. I made some progress, but I didn't quite finish it. I will get up early tomorrow morning and get it done before the Korean class at 13:00. I watched BBC news on TV while I ate dinner. Lights out at 24:00.
2005 June 28 Tuesday.
My teaching day started at 9:00 at Asahikawa University. Today's reading exercise was about a help wanted ad and the listening exercise was about a conversation between two co-workers in which one co-worker decides to quit the company. After all that excitement was finished at 12:10, I left the campus and went to the drive-thru at KFC to take advantage of some discount coupons and eat some tasty junk food. Yummy. I ate the grease soaked, hi calorie crap as I slowly drove my van back to my classroom. I managed to finish all 3 items just as I arrived back at the parking lot. With lunch out of the way, I had plenty of time to sit down, stretch out my legs and check out the latest news on the web. Classes began at 15:00 and ended at 20:00. I needed to spend some time printing out post cards and trying to translate that Old Korean Story into Japanese and English. I finished printing all of the post cards, but I didn't make very much progress with the translation. Lights out at 11:00.
2005 June 27 Monday.
My first class of the day was at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. Today I didn't have much to talk about so I let the students go ahead and do all of the talking. One man talked about going to the wedding ceremony of a woman who he has know since she was just a little girl. He said how it had brought back memories of his own wedding ceremony many years ago. Another man talked about a very courageous nurse who tried to save an old man's life with CPR in spite of the fact that she could have been infected with hepatitis C. Another man talked about the upcoming Water Festival in Suehiro on July 10. After that was finished at 14:30, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. When classes were finished, I updated this blog for Friday, Saturday, Sunday and today. Then it was dinner time and research on the internet. Lights out at 24:00.
2005 June 26 Sunday.
Warm and overcast. Looks like rain in the mountains. My first order of business today was to get out the garden hose and clean off my big balcony. It hasn't been cleaned yet this year and I had a big job in front of me. What a mess! After about 3 hours of hosing and scrubbing with dishwashing detergent and a long handled brush, I finally go the place all cleaned up. After that, I took a dip in a cold water tub and then we went for a short drive. First, we went to my wife's mother's house in Chuwa to get some postal items. Then, we went to the Western Supermarket in Chikabumi to get some meat for tonight's BBQ on the balcony. Next stop was at 100Man Volts to order some software and buy some business cards printer paper. After that, it was back home to start the BBQ. It was the perfect night for it too. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. After that was finished at about 23:00 it was time for bed. Lights out at 24:00.
2005 June 25 Saturday.
The
heat and humidity continues. I didn't have to teach any classes today so I
spent the entire morning redesigning the business card for my classroom.
You can see the result on the left. One problem I had was to get the right
shade of purple to print properly on the printer. For some reason, it
looks different on the computer monitor than it does when printed out on paper.
After about an hour of trial and error, I finally got the color right. At
about 15:00, I decided to go cycling on my mountain bike. I used to go
almost every day in years past, but recently, I don't go very often at all.
In fact, today was only the second time this year that I have used my bicycle.
As it turned out, I was only
able
to ride it for about 40 minutes because it was just too hot. I came back
to my classroom soaked in sweat and took a dip in a bathtub full of cold water.
That made me feel much better. Then I went to the supermarket and got a 6
pack of Sapporo Classic all malt beer and drank most of it. After that, I
played the folk guitar for a while. Today's music of choice was
Neil Young Harvest Moon. A really nice album that I haven't listened
to in a long time. Then it was time for dinner and some surfing on the
internet. Lights out at 24:00.
2005 June 24 Friday.
Another hot and humid day. My teaching day started at 9:00 with a 90 minute class at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Today we finished up page one of my original textbook American English for All Occasions 日常表現 and I gave them page 2 of the same textbook for our next class. Only 2 of the 18 students could recite the entire text of page 1 without looking at the page. There really is a difference in the ability of people to learn a foreign language. After that was finished at 10:30, I took a taxi back to my classroom. As I was getting out the taxi, I noticed that Michiko and Sachiko's coffee shop, Soleil was open so I stopped in to have a cup of coffee. Today's exhibit was of silk flowers. This coffee shop is located in the lobby on the first floor of Taiyo no Sato and is only open on special occasions such as when someone has an exhibit. Sachiko and Michiko asked me to do an exhibition of my photographs. I said that I would think about it. After I finished my coffee, I went up to my classroom to eat lunch get ready for my next class. At 13:30 I had a private lesson with two delightful ladies who come every week at this time. They had been to see the Inoue Yosui concert on Tuesday June 21 here in Asahikawa. They said that they really enjoyed it. I gave them a copy of his CD カシス which was released on July 24, 2002. The same day I went to see his live concert for the first time here in Asahikawa. He is by far my favorite Japanese musician. That class was finished at 14:30. After that it was classes from 15:00 until 20:00. When all of my classes were finished, did some research in the internet about e-learning. Lights out at 24:00.
2005 June 23 Thursday.
Hot and humid again today. I had to turn on the AC cooler again. I gotta be careful though. If the cooler blows directly on my head or neck, it makes me fell rather ill. There is a big difference between AC cold air and the natural cold air of winter. I'm glad it's not this hot here all year round. My teaching day started off at 15:00 and went until 20:00. After that, I finished translating a Hokkaido Newspaper article about Ichiro getting 1000 hits in the Major League. You can read the translation by clicking here. Then it was time for dinner and some TV news. Lights out at 12:00.
2005 June 22 Wednesday.
I woke up at about 5:00 with a pounding headache. I took some aspirin and tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. Even at about 7:00 my headache was not much better so I had to send a FAX to the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校) and tell them that I would not be able to teach my English class today. This is a big hassle for them because they must reschedule my missed class for another day and time, and their schedule is very full and complicated. The reason they must reschedule the class is because the students must take 60 hours of English in their first year, and I am in charge of 30 of those hours. After I sent the FAX, I took two more aspirin and went back to bed. This time I was able to go back to sleep. When I woke up at about 12:00, I felt much better. I ate lunch and got ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. When the last class was finished at 20:00, I finished editing the photos I took in Kitami on June 18 and 19. You can view the photo gallery by clicking here. After I finished that, I ate dinner and went to bed. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 21 Tuesday.
Greetings
on the summer solstice! 夏至. A hot and humid day. Not all that
humid by comparison to Honshu, but for us northern folk in snow country, more
than humid enough. My teaching day started at 9:00 at Asahikawa
University. Again today, we were using the internet software for reading
and listening practice. Today's reading topic was The Orbits of the
Planets 太陽系惑星の軌道 and the listening topic was Confirmation of an
Appointment. 予定の確認. I asked the students some questions about what they
had read. Many of them could answer correctly. Then I asked them;
"When is the next full moon?" Nobody could answer the
question!
I said "The Hokkaido News paper has the phases of the moon on its front page
every day! Don't you read the newspaper?" Everyone said; "No."
So I said, "Don't you ever look up into the night sky?" Again the answer
was; "No." Amazing. If you want to know what is going on around you,
must open your eyes. Those two classes were finished at 12:10. I
drove back to my classroom and got ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00.
Today at about 16:30, a woman called my classroom. She said that she had
looked at this website and wanted to take a trial lesson with her two young
daughters. When are you open? As it
turned
out, today at 18:00 was open so she said that she would come today. When
she arrived with her 3 and 4 year old daughters, she began speaking English
immediately. I was impressed with her enthusiasm towards her daughters'
English education. It turns out that the family has lived in Florida, USA,
for about 18 months and had just come back to Japan one month ago. She
wanted to make sure that her daughters would not forget the English they had
learned while living in America so she came looking for a good school. She
found it! After the trial lesson, she decided right away to start lessons
the very next week. Thank you very much Mrs. T! I am looking forward to
helping your daughters become fluent in English, just like you are. These
are the kind of students that I like the best. They have a clear objective
and want to learn as much as they can, as fast as possible. Hey!
That's what I am here for. By the way, I was talking about the full moon
just a few lines above. In Japan, when the full moon is visible, people
say that you can see the shape of rabbits pounding rice cakes on the face of the
moon
うさぎがもちをついている. Americans say that you can see the face of the man in
the moon. Which do you see? Of course, everyone on earth is looking
at the same side of the moon so, what they think they see is mostly a product of
their imaginations. Imaginations that are strongly influenced by their
cultural upbringing. I have lived in Japan for more than 15 years, but
every time I look at the full moon, I still see the face of the man in the moon.
What do you see? I spent the rest of the evening putting together a
new photo gallery of the pictures that I took during my two days in Kitami.
I should be finished within the next day or two. Tonight's dinner,....beef
stew with brown rice. Yummy! Lights out at 23:30.
2005 June 20 Monday.
My first class of the day was at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. I brought the pamphlets and other printed material that I had received in Kitami and passed them around for the students to look at. I told them a bit about where I went and what I saw. Other students talked about various things such as how they had spent their weekends. After that was finished at 14:30, I came back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then it was dinner time and research on the internet. Lights out at 12:00.
2005 June 19 Sunday.
I woke up at about 4:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. One of the reasons is because I am not used to sleeping in a bed. I usually sleep Japanese style on a futon placed on tatami mats. Another reason is because my nose was running and I was sneezing a lot. That is when I realized that I had forgotten to bring my Ten Cha 甜茶. I have had pollen allergies 花粉症 since I was a very young child. My father used to give me pharmaceuticals of various types to ease the suffering, but they all had side effects. Finally this year, my wife read about Ten Cha on the internet and ordered some. I started drinking it in April of the year, and it has made a world of difference. I fully realized that again today when I woke up wheezing. Because I woke up so early, I decided to go outside and take another walk around the shopping district of Kitami. Everything was very quiet except for my constant sneezing and spitting. The people who saw me for the first time today must have thought that I was a very rude person to be spitting on the road, but I really had no choice in the matter. I couldn't help myself. I was an allergy afflicted, out of control, walking basket case. I used up all of my pocket tissues and had to return to my hotel room and use the toilet paper instead. The breakfast buffet at the hotel started at 6:40 so Akira Baba and I went down to the dining room at 10:50. It was already crowded with association members and other people also. I eat eggs and bacon along with coffee, milk and bread. This is the first time in a long time that I have eaten a western style breakfast. Usually I eat natto maki and/ or onigiri for breakfast. Either way is OK but today's breakfast was of the type that was typical of my youth. It tasted very good, and I ate too much. After breakfast was finished, I went back to my hotel room to brush my teeth, pack my bag and get ready for today's events. Today, everyone was going to take a tour of Kitami's cultural assets. We all gathered in the lobby of the hotel by 8:15 and waited for the buses to come and pick us up. Our first stop on the bus tour was at Shinzenkouji 信善光寺 to see the dolls of the Japanese soldiers who developed Kitami 屯田兵人形. Our next stop was at a the site of an excavation for artifacts of Kawahigashi 16 川東１６遺跡発堀現場. Next stop was at the Peppermint Memorial House ハッカ記念館. The place smelled really good. After that, our last stop on the tour was at the Pierson Memorial House ピアソン記念館. The Piersons were a missionary couple who lived in Kitami as well as many other parts of Japan. At 12:10 all the group members went to the Hotel Kurobe for lunch. Akria Baba made a speech and then everyone ate lunch. When that was finished at 13:00, a bus took us to Kitami station. We had about an hour of time before the train to Asahikawa departed so we did some shopping at the nearest department store. The train for Asahikawa left at 14:20 and we arrived in Asahikawa at about 17:10. I took taxi home and downloaded the photos I took during the two days from my digital camera to my PC. I will make a photo gallery in the next few days. Lights out at 11:00.
2005 June 18 Saturday.
I got up at 5:30 to a clear and sunny day.
I immediately went to work finishing the new business card that I made just last
night, to
promote this website. As you know, this website started out as a glorified yellow pages
advertisement for my classroom, but it has grown much beyond that.
Nowadays it has a lot of
photo galleries of various places in Hokkaido, as well as essays about various
subjects and the daily blog which is 100% about my day to day experiences
living here in Hokkaido. Such being the case, I wanted to make a new
business card that clearly shows what is on this website, besides the
information about my classroom. So on one side of the
new business card I
wrote, "Let's spread the word about the enchantment of Hokkaido in English!"
and I listed the main sections of the website that do just that. On the
other side of the new business card, I listed the website URL as well as my name
and email address. I did not list an address or phone number because that
info in on the top page of this website. I was able to print and laminate
20 cards before I had to take a shower and pack my bag for the train trip to
Kitami. At about 8:20
Akira
Baba called me and said "I'm on my way
over to your place." I said, "OK. I'll meet you out front." As
promised, his taxi pulled up at 8:35 and we were on our way to the JR train station.
We arrived with plenty of time to spare so we sat on one row of the plastic seats that line
the station's many platforms. The train pulled into the station exactly on
time as the trains here always do. We climbed aboard and sat down in our reserved
seats. It's a good thing that Akira got us reserved seats, because the train was
already crowded with passengers that had boarded in Sapporo and other stops
along the line before Asahikawa. The train ride to Kitami takes 3 hours.
The scenery along the way is absolutely beautiful until you arrive in Kitami. Sorry to
say it, but the scenery around Kitami is not very awe inspiring. The city
of Kitami is located in a basin surrounded by low rolling hills. You cannot see
any high mountains from Kitami. Also, there are no big rivers and no lakes
at all. Therefore, rice cultivation is not possible. Nowadays the main
cash crop is onions. Very sweet and delicious onions. It reminds me
of Walla Walla Washington, in the USA. Hot and dry in the summer time, and
cold and frozen during the long winter. Not a very interesting place
to visit, and not such a nice place to live either. We met two
office staff members of the
Hokkaido Cultural Property Protection Association as we
were getting off the train. They had been riding the same train since it
left its starting point in Sapporo. We had lunch together at a small
restaurant across the street from the station. After that, we headed over
to the Kitami Arts and Culture Hall
北見芸術文化ホール for the annual meeting.
The meeting didn't start until 15:00 so I went for a walk by myself around the
shopping district in the center of town. There were about 8 blocks of
shopping area along with some bars and restaurants around the edges of the area.
One nice thing about this area is that the sidewalks have roofs over them so
people can shop in comfort during any kind of weather. After looking
around the area for about an hour, I went back to the meeting hall and listened
to the items of business of the association, and then to the guest lecture.
This year the guest lecture was delivered by Akinori Shimizu 清水昭典 and the title
was The History of the Okhotsk Region オホーツク地方の郷土史. He talked about
how the land was settled by Japanese military personnel using slave labor from
China and Korea, how the people who started the mint growing business became
very wealthy and how the biggest agricultural crop in Kitami nowadays is onions.
It was a very interesting talk and I learned a lot from it. After that was
finished at 17:40, we all went to the Tokyu Inn hotel for a dinner party.
The party was kicked off by a Taiko Drums performance of a local group. It
was really powerful. Then everyone started eating and drinking.
Akira Baba introduced me to all of the VIPs at the party and I exchanged
business cards with them. One of them was a current member of the Hokkaido
Prefectural Assembly 北海道議会議員 named
Toshimitsu Funahashi 船橋利実 He gave a very lively speech before the beginning
of the party in which he talked about the need to spread the word about the
enchantment of Hokkaido to the rest of the world and get more tourists to come
to the island etc. etc. My new business card promoting my website has the
exact same message on it so I decided to introduce myself to him. I said
"I have been living in Asahikawa for 15 years and I really love Hokkaido. If you
have time, please look at my website." I also gave him the other business
card I have that is for my English Conversation classroom. To my surprise,
he spent about 2 minutes carefully looking over my business cards and seemed to
be genuinely interested in reading them. A lot of people will quickly
glance at my business card and then put it away in their pockets. This guy
is different. The party lasted until about 20:30. After that, Akira
Baba and I went downtown to look at the nightlife scene and check out some of
the local pub restaurants. We didn't find anything very interesting
so we came back to the hotel at about 22:30 and each went to out separate rooms.
I took a hot bath and watched some TV until about 24:00. Then I fell asleep.
2005 June 17 Friday
Yet again, a warm (hot) and sunny day. The Flower Festival 花フェスター at the Taisetsu Arena 大雪アリナー continues to draw a lot of visitors. In fact, some of my students have apologized for being late to class because they can't find a parking space near my classroom. I always advise them to park in the parking lot near the rear entrance of this building, Taiyo no Sato 太陽の郷 which is usually not full of cars. My teaching day began at 9:00 with a 90 minute class at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Today we finished up page one of my original textbook American English for All Occasions 日常表現 and I gave them page 2 of the same textbook for our next class. Only 2 of the 18 students could recite the entire text of page 1 without looking at the page. There really is a difference in the ability of people to learn a foreign language. And of course, there is also a big difference in the ability of people to learn science, or math, or computer science etc. etc. Everybody needs to discover what their talents are, and make the the best use of them during the time passages of their lives. In my case, it has always been languages and music. I am not quick with mathematics, and I don't have a clue when it comes to the generally accepted accounting principles that every CPA must memorize from top to bottom. I also realize that the students at this nursing school as well as all of the other nursing schools need to memorize a lot of important medical information in order to pass their tests and graduate. That is why I never get angry or belittle them if they haven't done their homework for my insignificant English class. They have many and much more important things to learn than just English. After that class was finished at 10:30, I came back to my classroom and got ready for a private lesson from 13:30 until 14:30, and then regular classes from 15:00 until 20:00. After that was all done, I started designing a new business card that promotes my website more than it does my classroom. Tomorrow morning, I will be taking the 9:00 JR train to Kitami 北見 with my friend and mentor Akira Baba 馬場昭. We will be going to the Hokkaido Cultural Property Protection Association's general meeting and cultural assets of tour of Kitami. It will be a one night, two days affair. I hope to take some nice photos which I can post on this website. Stay tuned, more coming soon. Lights out at midnight.
2005 June 16 Thursday
The warm weather continues. My teaching day started off 14:00 here in my classroom. A mother and her 4 year old daughter came to take a trial lesson. When the mother spoke English, she sounded just like a native speaker of American English so I asked her if she was born and raised in America. She said "No, I wasn't, but I lived in LA for 5 years when I was in elementary school." I said, "So that's why you speak like an American. It's important to start learning a second language early." Apparently the mother agrees and that is why she brought her 4 year old daughter to my classroom today. Unfortunately for me, I didn't start learning Japanese until I was 20 years old. It does make a difference how young you start. She also said that she and her family had just moved to Asahikawa this May from a place in southern Japan. I mentioned that Asahikawa is warm and sunny now, but that it is covered in snow 5 months of the year. She said she hasn't yet lived in snow country. After that lesson was finished at 14:55, I had lessons from 15:00 until 20:00. Then I got busy translating an article from the Hokkaido Newspaper about Ichiro of the Seattle Mariners having reached the 1000 hit mark in his U.S. Major League career. I really admire Ichiro for the hard work and dedication he has for his chosen profession. I have read another newspaper article last year that said Ichiro warms up for 3 hours before every game! After 3 hours of stretching and running etc., he then plays in a baseball game for another 3 or 4 hours! That's dedication. It's no wonder why he is such an excellent athlete. I will post the translated article on this website when I am finished. Lights out at 12:00.
2005 June 15 Wednesday
Another hot and sunny day. My teaching day started off 8:50 at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). Today we practiced the first conversation on page two of my original textbook American English for all Occasions 日常表現. Page two is a continuation of the story on page one. Page one is about 2 people meeting for the first time and exchanging some information about where they are from and where they have been before. Page 2 starts with a conversation about "It was nice to meet you today. I have to get going now because..... but I would like to meet you again sometime." The two people exchange telephone numbers and say goodbye. I tried to have the conversation practice with every student, but 90 minutes was not enough time for all of the 40 students. I will start conversation practice next week with the students that I couldn't talk with today. After that class was over at 10:20, I came back to my classroom and ate brunch. Then I got ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. During the 17:00 class, one of the girls, a 6th grader at Kamui Higashi Elementary School brought me a gift that she bought while on her school trip to Otaru and Sapporo. It was the famous confectionary known as 白い恋人. I usually don't eat sweets, but tonight I did. I was really delicious. Thanks M! The student who came to the 19:00 class talked about a movie she had seen called Million Dollar Baby staring Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman. She described the story and I thought that I would like to see the rental DVD some day. I very rarely watch movies, or TV for that matter. I am more interested in doing other things. At about 23:30, I stepped out onto my balcony and could see an orange colored half moon near the western horizon with Jupiter very closely above and to the left. It was a very beautiful sight. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a good photo of it. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 14 Tuesday
A hot and sunny day. Days like this make it easy to forget that Asahikawa is covered in snow for 5 months of the year every year. Today started off at 9:00 with two classes at Asahikawa University. Today's topics were, the size of the planets and checking out of a hotel. Of course we used the internet software program for most of the lesson. After that was finished at 12:30, I came back to my classroom to eat lunch and get ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. I had about 2 hours of free time today so I went to work translating the menu for Ohfune into English. This is a job that I do twice a year, every year. After classes were finished at 20:00, my wife and I went for a walk along the cycling roads that are riverside by the Biei and Chubetsu rivers. Again this evening, during our walk, we saw a very bright light in the sky that was moving slowly like a satellite 人工衛星. But it wasn't a satellite because the light was much too bright, and after a few seconds, the light became very dim as the object continued moving in a straight line. We often see lights like this when we are walking at night. This type of very bright to dim object is rather common. There are other types also such as bright flashing lights that travel in a straight line and flash once about every 4 or 5 seconds. Also there are not so bright lights that move in a straight line, stop, and then move in the opposite direction. Also we have see dim orange colored lights that move in pairs low along the horizon, as well as other unexplainable aerial phenomena. Most of the people I ask about this stuff, have never seen anything like it themselves, but then again, they don't go out walking at night either. If you don't take the time to carefully look at the night sky, you will never see them either. What do I think these lights are? I have no idea. But I do know what they are not. After the hour long walk was finished, we came back to our classroom and drank some cold beers before eating dinner. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 13 Monday
Partly sunny, partly cloudy with light to heavy rains throughout the day. It's hard to know how to dress for a day like this. It's also a good idea to have an umbrella handy. My teaching day started at 10:00 at the Kuri no Ki Kindergarten くりの木幼稚園 in Nagayama. This year, Kuri no Ki is moving to a brand new building in September. So for now, all of the children of Kuri no Ki are in the same building with all of the children of Setsurei Kindergarten 雪嶺幼稚園 which is also in Nagayama. In other words, there are 195 children together in one building. Today's English Friendship Class 英語ふれあい was a rather noisy affair. Becasue I haven't seen these kids since last February, today's lesson was a review of all the stuff we learned during the previous year. When that was finished at 11:00, I came back to my classroom, ate lunch and got ready for my next class at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. Today, one of the students talked about a book entitled something like 生きて、死んでの知恵 Wisdom for living and dying. According to his description, the book sounded like a mix of Buddhist, Taoist and nihilist philosophies. He said he would bring the book next week so that I could see it. After that class was finished at 14:30, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. One of the students in my 20:00 works at an American pharmaceutical company based in Sapporo. Today he brought a medical journal article, written in English that described a case study of one of the company's drugs. He asked me to write an easy to understand summary of the article after class was finished. When I looked at the article after class, I told the student that I would need to read the article more carefully and that I would send him the summary by FAX before 21:30 this evening. It took me about 45 minutes to read and type a summary of the article which I then sent by FAX. Of course being an article in a medical journal, it uses a lot of special vocabulary which may be difficult for a non-native speaker of English to understand. I was able to rewrite the gist of the article in a more conversational style of English. After that it was dinner time and research on the internet. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 12 Sunday
A full fledged rainy day. It was coming down hard most of the day. At about 16:00 my wife and I went to visit our friend, Mr. Baba at the Yoshida Hospital. He was up and walking around and in good spirits. We talked to him for about an hour. Then we went to Western Powers in Nagayama to do some grocery shopping. After that it was dinner time and time to clean up the living room. Not a very exciting day. Lights out at 02:00.
2005 June 11 Saturday
An overcast and somewhat cooler day with light rain off and on. I spent most of the day translating some articles from the Hokkaido newspaper. You can read the translations by clicking here. At about 20:00, I got the urge to eat Korean BBQ so, I set up my BBQ set on my veranda and went to work on the first BBQ of the first year. Of course I had to drink hot tea with shochu 焼酎 and have massive amounts of kimchi キムチ with my brown rice 玄米. It tasted pretty good. After that I continued to work on the translations as well as a few other things. Lights out at 04:00.
2005 June 10 Friday
It is hot
and rather humid today. When I say humid, I don't mean dripping wet humid
like you feel in most other parts of Japan, but for people like me who live in
Hokkaido all year round, it feels humid. Again, I turned on the air conditioner
for about an hour during the late afternoon. My first class of the day was
at 9:00 at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院.
Today's topic was the
CQ test. I asked the students to read the entire test (written in
Japanese) and then I asked them to try and translate questions 1,2,8,20 and 21
into English. Some of the students did very well. Some of them wrote
English that was either meaningless or, was comical because of unintended
meanings. I wrote my translations on the blackboard and told them that
they could read the rest of the English on my website. Then we started
conversation practice which lasted until the end of the class at 10:30.
After that class was over, I walked back to my classroom by going through Kagura
Oka Park 神楽岡公園. I was amazed at how nice the park looked yesterday
because about 9 months ago, when a typhoon hit Asahikawa (a very, very rare
event) many of the trees in the park were uprooted and blown over. Today,
even though I could see were some of the damaged trees had been cut off at the
trunks, other trees that had only been uprooted and blown over, seemed to have
been put back upright again! I know this doesn't make a lot of sense,
because the trees would be unstable, but that's the way it looked.
It took me about an hour to get back home from the nursing school. Then I
ate lunch and got ready for classes from 15:00 until 18:00. After
classes were finished, my wife and I went downtown to the SanRoku District to
have dinner at Oofune.
We were celebrating the 9th anniversary of the start our classroom. I was
saddened to hear from the owner's son that his father was in the hospital.
I called the father on the phone from the restaurant and talked to him for about
5 minutes. He seemed to be in very good spirits. We are scheduled to go to
Kitami together next weekend for the general meeting of the Hokkaido Cultural
Property Protection Association
北海道文化財保護協会.
I hope he feels better by then. We finished dinner at about 10 pm, and the
owner's son asked me to translate their new menu into English. They also
have a Chinese and Korean language version of their menu. As my wife and I
were walking home, we could feel a few raindrops. The air felt heavy and
damp, but again, nothing like if feels in the rest of Japan. When we got
home, I took a dip in a cold tub of water to cool off and wash the film of sweat
from my body. After that, it was research on the internet. Lights
out at 1:00.
2005 June 9 Thursday
Feels like summer. I even turned on the air conditioner for about an hour during the late afternoon. This classroom is on the southwest corner of the building, and the outside of the building is covered with bricks so if the sun is shining all day, the bricks get heated up and stay warm well into the night. This makes the classroom very hot indeed. Today is the 9th anniversary of the start of Snowman Bei Kaiwa. It is also the 12th wedding anniversary for the Crown Prince of Japan and his wife Masako Sama 皇太子雅子様結婚記念日。 I wonder if this is just a coincidence. My teaching day started at 15:00 and lasted until 20:00. After that it was dinner time and more research on the internet. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 8 Wednesday
Again, another very warm and sunny day. I have already forgotten how cold it gets here during the 5 months of continuous snow cover. I haven't turned on my air conditioning (AC) unit yet, but today I thought about doing it. It was getting that close to the limit of how hot, is too hot. We are not yet there, but we are getting close. My first order of business today was to teach a 90 minute class at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). Today we tried to finish the first page of my original textbook "American English for all Occasions". We did OK. Some of the students were very nervous and they were unable to feel natural while reciting their lines. I truly felt sorry for some of them because they were obviously under a lot of stress. That is not what I had intended. Also, I noticed, again this year, as well as is past years, that most of the students were so busy trying to remember their lines that they didn't even listen to a word of what I was saying. I told them again and again that it is very important to listen to what the other person is saying before giving their response. Communication is a two way street. It is more important to listen than it is to talk. Talk only after you have listened, and listen well. I can not stress this point enough. After that class was finished at 10:20, I took a drive up to the Asahiyama Zoo. It was only 10:30 in the morning but there were already many tour buses there and a lot of other people as well. I must to take my hat off to the director of marketing at the Asahiyama Zoo. Whoever he or she is, they have done an excellent job of promoting the zoo. It is, in fact the most popular zoo in all of Japan. Amazing. Considering that Asahikawa is only the 49th largest city in all of Japan. Compare that to Sapporo which is number 5. Innovation and originality. That is the key. Use your brain. Think! Don't be lulled into a sense of stupidity by watching TV every day. Live your life to the fullest. Don't just piss it away. After that, I translated an article from the Hokkaido Newspaper about IT education from Japanese into English. You can read the translation by clicking here. Lights out at midnight.
2005 June 7 Tuesday
Another warm and sunny day! I might start getting used to this. First class of the day was at 9:00 at Asahikawa University. Today we studied about the different kinds of tea and also practiced a daily conversation dialogue about going to a dance party on Saturday night. A fictitious story, of course. After those two classes were finished at 12:10, I came back to my classroom and got ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. The whole day today was bright and beautiful. A perfect day to be outside. As a result, a lot of my students called in and cancelled their classes for the day. I would have done the same thing if I were them. I used the free time to make a photo montage of some of my past and present students in order to commemorate my 9th year in business as Snowman's American English Family classroom. You can see it on the home page of this website. Some of the children in the photo montage are now high school and/or college students! How time flies! Of course I couldn't put the photos of all my students in such a small space, but I think I captured the feeling of the classroom in it. You may notice that everyone has a beautiful smiling face. Me too. After my last class was finished at 20:00, my wife and I went for a walk along the cycling road that runs along the Biei and Chubetsu Rivers. The sky above was clear, and tonight was a new moon 新月 so it was very dark and the stars and planets were very bright. Especially Jupiter and Venus. On the way back from our walk, we stopped by the 7-11 on route 237 and bought some beer. We then walked the short distance to the new Crystal Park which is behind Crystal Hall, sat on one of the benches and talked about the cosmos as we drank our beer and looked at the star-filled sky above. After about an hour, we walk back home and ate dinner. Lights out at 1:00.
2005 June 6 Monday
Warm and sunny! My first job of the day was the English Friendship Class at the Mebae Kindergarten. めばえ幼稚園の英語ふれあい。 I have been doing this for about 11 years. I bring my folk guitar and sing some children's songs that the children can also sing along with. I have made many colorful flash cards for teaching the: colors, alphabet, weather, animals, food, numbers etc. The kids have a great time and so do I. When that was finished at 11:20, I came back to my classroom, cleaned the place up and then ate some lunch. Lunch today was the leftover BBQ from yesterday, again with a lot of kimchi キムチ. My next class was at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. Today, one of the ladies talked about her first experience of going to the Sapporo Dome and watching a professional baseball game between the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. She said that before seeing a baseball game live, she did not much care about watching baseball, but after her first experience at the Sapporo Dome, she thought is was all very exciting. Yes, the energy of the crowd all around you does make a very big difference. After that was finished at 14:40, I came back to my classroom and had straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Again this evening, it was warm and the sky was mostly clear. Especially impressive was the sight of Venus 金星 near the horizon in the western sky. Very bright and beautiful. After doing some shopping at the Seikyo supermarket next door, I sat down and tried to translate that old Korean story: entitled "The tiger pack's dried persimmons" トラの群れの干し柿 into Japanese and English. I was only able to finish a few lines in about one hour. Then it was time for dinner. During dinner I watched a movie entitled About Schmidt starring Jack Nicholson which just happened to be playing on one of Sky Perfect TV's channels. It was fairly interesting. It was the first movie I've watched for many, many months. I was to tired to do anything else tonight. Lights out at 2:00.
2005 June 5 Sunday
Another cool and overcast day with rain off and on. Yesterday, today and tomorrow is the Asahikawa Gokoku Jinja Festival 護国神社祭. This is an annual event to commemorate the Japanese military personnel who have died in the wars. As usual, it always rains on at least one of these days. The people here call it Namida Ame 涙雨. The rain of tears of the soldiers who have died in the wars. This year, so far, it is two out of three days. I wonder about tomorrow? I usually go to this festival every year because I like to take photos of the people who come, especially of the girls and young women who wear many types of beautiful yukata 浴衣 which are summer kimono. The various designs and colors of these yukata are exquisite. It is a must see for anyone who has never been to Japan during the summer months. Since I won't have time to go tomorrow, I will have to wait until the next festival to take these photos. Of course I will post a photo gallery on this website. Anyway, I spent most of the day doing some shopping for food and other necessities. I wanted to have a BBQ but since it was raining, I used a fry pay instead. Of course I had to eat kimchi キムチ with my yakiniku 焼肉 as well as lots of brown rice 玄米. Since about 6 months ago, I have been eating mostly brown rice which the Japanese call genmai 玄米. Most Japanese people don't seem to eat it very often, but I really like it because it has more flavor and texture than white rice. Also, it has more fiber and vitamins. It is available in most large supermarkets but the amount on sale is much less than that of white rice. In the west, this would be the difference between whole-wheat bread and white bread. Today, being rather cold, it was a good day to take a nice long hot bath, so that's what I did before I went to bed. Lights out at 2:00.
2005 June 4 Saturday
Another cool and overcast day. I had a private lesson at 11:00 with a high school girl. Today's lesson was for learning English conversation, so I used one of my original textbooks that is really for junior high school students. Since this girl has already learned all the grammar and vocabulary that is in this book, it is relatively easy for her to memorize and speak the conversation dialogues contained in this text. The lesson ended at 12:00. After that, I spent some time studying the Korean Language. At about 17:40, I walked over to the Grand Hotel in downtown Asahikawa to attend a meeting for the part time teachers who work at Asahikawa University. As in every year since this event began about 5 years ago, I am the only non-Japanese teacher how attends these meetings. I wonder why. Again this year, the main topic of discussion was about the changing times in the educational system and the lower number of young people in the country, a trend that continues year after year. As you may well know, this is because of lower birth rates and longer life spans of the Japanese population. Also, I had a discussion with one of the staff members about the new English Language Study Curriculum and its use of an internet based study system. We both agreed that this new system was not yet perfect and could use some modifications. After that was over 20:30, I had planned to go to another location in downtown Asahikawa. Unfortunately, it was raining hard and I didn't bring an umbrella with we so, I hailed a taxi and rode back to my classroom. I spent the rest of the evening doing research on the internet. Lights out a 2:30.
2005 June 3 Friday
A bit cooler than yesterday and overcast. It looks like it might rain this weekend. My teaching day started off at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing Academy of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Today's topic was the CQ test. I asked the students to read the entire test (written in Japanese) and then I asked them to try and translate questions 1,2,8,20 and 21 into English. Some of the students did very well. Some of them wrote English that was either meaningless or, was comical because of unintended meanings. I wrote my translations on the blackboard and told them that they could read the rest of the English on my website. Then we started conversation practice which lasted until the end of the class at 10:30. When I finished that class, I walked over the the Asahikawa Medical College Hospital 旭川医科大学病院 because I had a painful hangnail in the big toe of my right foot. I first noticed it about 3 weeks ago and it got more and more painful as the days went by. Finally, 3 days ago, the skin on my big toe began to turn red. Oh no! A red level alert! I need to get help! So, today after class, I walked over to the Medical College which is right next door, and had it taken care of. The hospital was very crowded. I walked up to the front desk and presented my National Health Insurance card and my hospital ID card. Again today, I realized how important it is for a person living in Japan to be able to speak, read and write the Japanese Language. The lady at the front desk asked me "Have you been referred here by another hospital or clinic?" I replied, "No, I haven't." Then she asked me "Is this your first visit to this hospital?" Again I replied, "No, it isn't. I came here about 4 years ago to have my right ear examined after I fell against a table edge, and my ear got all puffed up and full of fluid." She then handed me a piece of paper that said: NOTICE if you have not been referred here by another hospital or clinic, you must pay an extra charge of about $25. I asked her, "Is this a one time only fee?" She replied, "If you come back to this hospital again for the same reason, it is. If not, you may have to pay the fee again if more than 2 years has elapsed." I said, "OK, I understand. I will pay the extra $25." After I checked in at the front desk, I was referred to the epidemiological department 皮膚科 of the hospital down on the first floor. So, I walked down the stairs and placed my file into the in-box at the reception window. I sat down on one of the low-backed long sofas and waited for my name to be called. A few minutes later, one of the nurses called me over to the reception window and asked me to fill out a questionnaire アンケット about my health history. It's a damn good thing I can read Japanese because there was not even one word of English on the form. I even had to write some information in Japanese on several parts of the paper. It reconfirmed to me again why some non-Japanese who live in Japan, are often ill-at-ease. If you can't read the language of the country you are living in, you don't really know what is going on around you. It can lead to a sense of insecurity and confusion. When I finished filling-out the questionnaire, I was told to sit down and wait until I was called again. After only about 10 minutes, I was summoned by a very attractive young lady, a 6th year medical student, who gave me a preliminary exam. She was very good at her job. I know that she will become an excellent doctor after she graduates next March. When she was finished, she told me to wait again for the doctor to call me. In about 5 minutes, the doctor's assistant called me to come into room 8. An older male doctor was waiting there for me with some staff members and about 7 more 6th year students who were standing around and watching as a part of their studies. The doctor spoke some limited English with me and told me that I had an ingrown toenail. He said that he would remove it right then and there. I said, "Thank you very much." He got out a pair of parrot-beak snippers and a pair of tweezers and went to work. After about 3 minutes, he had removed the painful hangnail. He disinfected the affected area and had a bandage wrapped around it by one of his assistants. He said, "This should do it. If it doesn't completely heal in one week, please come back again." I said, "Thank you sir. I will do as you say. Thanks again." After that was finished, I went back up to the 2nd floor to pay my bill. The total charge came to about $35 dollars. I walked out of the hospital with a big smile on my face. Not only had the treatment been relatively inexpensive, but the doctor, the nurses, the 6th year students, and the other office staff members had been extremely polite and very helpful. It was a positive experience. After all of that was over, I took a taxi back to my classroom, took out the garbage and ate lunch at the Steak Victoria next door. Then it was straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. I had a lot to write about today. Thank you for taking the time to read it.
2005 June 2 Thursday
Yet another very warm and sunny day. In fact, it was the warmest day of the year so far with a high temperature of 28 degrees C. It's days like this that make it easy to forget that Asahikawa is covered in snow for 5 months of the year, every year, with below freezing temperatures. My first order of business today was a Korean Language class at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門) starting at 13:00. Again today, the professor who is from the Hokkaido Education College in Asahikawa talked for a while about the best ways to learn a foreign language. He and I see eye to eye on this subject. He doesn't talk about the latest fad in education or throw around lots of fancy terminology, he just tells it like it is. This is rather rare for someone with a PhD. Today's lesson was about how to change a verb into the past tense. This part of the Korean grammar is rather different from the Japanese grammar. It will take some time to get used to. He also gave us two hand-outs. One page was written entirely in Korean and the other page was a vocabulary list in Korean and Japanese. He then explained that since this class would not meet again for 3 weeks, our homework was to translate the Korean only page, which is an old Korean story entitled "The tiger pack's dried persimmons" トラの群れの干し柿 into Japanese! Wow! What a deal! In my case, I have been studying Korean for about 14 months, but most of the rest of these students have only been at it for about 7 weeks. Plus, they are studying to be nurses and have a lot of other classes to study for as well. My main area of study is languages, just like the professor so for me this is a delightful challenge. In fact, this evening after classes at my classroom were finished at 20:00, I sat down and typed the original Korean of this story into my PC. I have some software called Korean Writer 5, which I bought last year. It also has some translation functions which are mostly for Japanese into Korean. Next I will translate and then type in the Japanese. Also, since I'm going to all the trouble to make a nice printout, I will add an English translation as well. I think I can get the job done in three weeks even though I have a lot of other stuff going on at the same time. I love a challenge.
2005 June 1 Wednesday
Another very warm and sunny day. My teaching day started at 8:50 at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). As I was driving up the hill towards the Kamikawa Shrine 上川神社 I saw a big fat guy riding his bicycle up the same hill on the right side of the road. He had a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth and when he got to the top of the hill, he stopped and took a big drag off of the fag. I was stunned. How can this guy stay alive? He must still be very young. Just when his body needs a fresh hit of oxygen the most, he inhales a big toke of CO2 gas plus other poisons. Amazing. I got to the Nursing school at about 8:30, so I stood around outside near my van and drank some tea while enjoying the warm sunshine. Finally, at about 8:40, I went inside and got ready to teach my class. Today's first topic was the CQ test. I asked the students to read the entire test (written in Japanese) and then I asked them to try and translate questions 1,2,3,4,20 and 21 into English. Some of the students did very well. I wrote my translations on the blackboard and told them that they could read the rest of the English on my website. Then we started conversation practice which lasted until the end of the class at 10:20. When I finished that class, I drove over to Asahikawa University to take a Korean Language class. That class lasted until 12:10. Then I came back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. After classes were finished, I started using Macromedia Dreamweaver for the first time. This is a very impressive website building software. It will take me a while to get used to it so I can use it efficiently. Lights out at 1:00.
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