Asahikawa American English Conversation School
for March 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 March 31 Thursday
Today is the last day of March. It is also my little sister's birth anniversary but she lives in Seattle Washington USA so it is not yet Thursday by her clock. Anyway, I recently received a postcard from my friendly Toyota dealer. I had purchased a new car in October of last year. Before now, I had driven a Toyota Corolla for 10 years. This time I bought a mini-van, the Toyota NOAH YY. It seats 5 persons and it can also be used as a camping car for 2 people. Anyway, the postcard was an invitation to have a free 6th month inspection of my new car, offer valid until the end of March. Today is the end of March so I drove my rig up to the dealership in the Suehiro district of Asahikawa and requested their services. They received me with a smile and a bow and after about 40 minutes, the job was done. Not only did they do everything they had promised to do, as written on the postcard, but they also washed my car, free of charge! How is that for customer service?!?!? The Japanese are No. 1 when it comes to customer service. Especially these days when businesses are going bankrupt all over the place. It's the survival of the smartest. The only thing they didn't do was fill up the gas tank. I was kind'a hoping that they would because starting tomorrow, the price of gasoline in Japan will go up by 5 yen per liter! Yes folks, in US Dollars, that is about 20 cents per gallon!!! Fill 'er Up!!!
2005 March 30 Wednesday
Another run-of-the-mill day. Nothing exceptional happened. Tomorrow is the last day of March and it is also my little sister's birthday. I already sent her a birthday card, I'll send an email too. What the hay? It's a birthday. It only happens once a year. One of the things that I have noticed during my 48 years on planet Earth is that when you say "Happy Birthday!" to someone, most people say, "I don't want to get older. I am not happy to see another birthday." My response to them is "Why not? You only have two options. Another birthday anniversary or DEATH. Which do you prefer?" Of course, I don't always say this out-loud. I just keep it to myself. Getting older is a good thing. It means that you are a survivor. You are still in this world. If your life in this world is interesting, that is a good thing. But if your life in this world is boring, well,... then you may need to rethink your options. I am happy to be alive. Even though I am fat and gray, I can still use my brain and life is interesting every day. A new day, a new creation. Always busy, always something to do. Ain't that the way life should be?
2005 March 29 Tuesday
The weather is not as nice as yesterday, but it's not bad. A little colder. First order of business today was to go out to the University where I teach English part time to set up my passwords and accounts that I will be using in the computer room this year. This year, for the first time, all 1st year students and repeaters (those who failed 1st year English last year) will be required to use an English language course on the internet. I think it will be good for those students who are serious about learning English because they can work at their level and at their pace. I would like to use it myself to study Japanese, Chinese and Korean but right now, this company doesn't offer any courses in those languages. When I entered the main building of the university from the front entrance, I noticed that there was a signboard which said "A list of all of the students who have passed the entrance examination." This is a very common sight at universities in Japan at this time of the year. What surprised me is that there were only 24 names on the list! That's all! This university also has a women's junior college and I don't know how many new students they will get this year, but only 24 new students at the 4 year university is not enough to pay the rent. Wow, times are tough these days.
2005 March 28 Monday
Hey! The weather guy was right for once. It really was a warm and sunny day. I could even SMELL spring in the air today. Maybe this is the real thing! It's about friggin' time. My first class today was at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館 英会話を楽しむ会。 One of the students who had just recently purchased a new car had an interesting story to tell. She said that she was driving around town doing some shopping when she noticed that her gasoline gauge showed almost empty. In her old car, she could still keep driving for quite a ways in this condition so she continued her shopping adventure. However, as she was driving down the ramp while leaving the covered parking area at Ito Yokado, her car suddenly stopped. Right in the middle of the street below the ramp! Oh no! She doesn't have a cell phone so she went back inside Ito Yokado to call her husband from a pay phone. Unfortunately, he wasn't home. So, she called the dealership where she had recently bought her new car. After 20 minutes, a man from the dealership came with a tank of gasoline and filled up her car. She asked him "How much do I owe you?" and the guy said "Nothing." A few days later, she visited the car dealership and gave the man some gift certificates to show her appreciation. How is that for customer service Japan style? One suggestion, join the Japanese Automobile Federation JAF. They can help you out in an emergency situation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can visit their website by clicking here. Am I a member of JAF??? Of course I am!!! See ya!
2005 March 27 Sunday
A see-saw game between snow and sunshine again today. Not much fun to be outdoors so I spent the day making new pages for some of my textbooks and other teaching materials as well. According to the weather forecast tomorrow will be a sunny day. We shall see.
2005 March 26 Saturday
Another strange day
weather-wise. First, it snowed. Then the sun came out and melted all
of the new fallen snow. Then, it snowed again. Later the sun came
out again and melted all of the new snow. By night time, the snow had won
the contest. Come on, weather guy! Make up your mind!
Speaking of snow, you may have noticed the fantastic image on the left of this block of text. This is an actual PHOTOGRAPH of a real snow crystal. Want to see more? You can by clicking here. This website, at the California Institute of Technology, even has a Snow Crystals Tour of Japan with one stop in Kaga, and another stop right here in Asahikawa! Yes, they went to the Snow Crystals Museum and even went skiing at Santa Present Park. That's right! Asahikawa is famous for snow. No big surprise, right?
I had a hope of riding my mountain bike today, but the weather guy put a stop to that. Maybe next week.
What's for dinner tonight? Thai Curry! Yummy.
See ya tomorrow.
When I woke up this
morning there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. Towards the
middle of the day, it melted off. But then, in the evening, it snowed
again and you can see the result in the photo on the left. Maybe I won't
be able to go cycling tomorrow after all. Speaking of the photo on the
left, you can see a Rotating Counter Sushi Restaurant called HeiRoku KaiTenZushi.
I love sushi, and I go to this restaurant every week. Sometimes 2 or 3
times a week. You can read an essay I wrote about 回転寿司 by
clicking here. This particular restaurant opened on July 23,
2004 and my wife and I went there on that day. The food was delicious, the
prices were low and the staff was friendly. I became a regular customer.
I went there again today for lunch. After I finished eating, I went to the
cash register to pay my bill. As I did, I saw a sign on the wall that
said: "Thank you for your patronage, unfortunately we will be closing this shop
on March 29." I did a double take to make sure I was reading it correctly.
I was. I asked the lady behind the cash register if this was really true.
She said it was. I couldn't believe it. Well, so much for my
favorite lunch time place. The history of this building in the photo is a
long story, but in brief, it was originally a public bath and sauna. I
used to go there all the time. A few years ago, they started having
trouble with the boiler overheating and the fire department came a few times to
put out the fire and smoke. Then, after a very expensive remodeling, it
became a Pub Restaurant called KoHaku. After about a year, this same
restaurant did another very expensive remodeling job and reopened for business
again. After about one more year, the restaurant closed.
The building sat vacant for many months. Finally, I began to see people working
on the building again and completely remodeling it. Finally, on July 23 it
reopened as HeiRoku KaiTenZushi. I was delighted because I really love
sushi. Obviously the reform of the inside and outside of the building, as
well as the big new free standing sign cost many millions of yen. You can
imagine my surprise at today's news of the closing. Having talked to the
shop manager on several occasions I know that this chain store has another shop
in the AEON Shopping Mall here in Asahikawa as well as several other shops in
Sapporo and some in northeastern Honshu. What puzzles me is why the
management decided to close this shop down in less than one year. It seems
to me they could have kept it going by using the profits from other more well
established shops to support this shop until it could begin to make a profit.
I don't have an MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree (経営学修士) but did
get a BA (学士号) in the same field and I have many years of experience as an
independent contractor, so I do understand the basics of business. It is
not that complicated. What you need is: 1. An excellent product or
service that people want and need. 2. Reasonable prices that people can
afford pay on a regular basis. 3. Excellent customer service to make
the people want to come back to your business again and again. Those are
the basics. 123. However, before you start a business in a certain
location, you must do some market research into the possible competition
in that location. This may have been were HeiRoku made a mistake.
Before they opened this new shop, there were already 2 other KaiTenZushi
restaurants in the same area. One called CHOICE, which is very successful
and often has people waiting in line. Another one called SUSHI ROKU which
has another long standing shop in the middle of this city. Apparently,
someone in top management at HeiRoku didn't take this into consideration.
I wanted to learn more about this company so I put the key words 平禄回転寿司 into
both the YAHOO and GOOGLE search engines on the INTERNET. YAHOO returned
exactly 0 hits. That's right ZERO!!! YAHOO returned 4 hits.
That's right ONLY 4! And none of them were directly related to this
company. Here it is the year 2005 and this big company doesn't even have a
website! Can you believe it? HELLO??? Well anyway, I've been
rambling on here because I was so stunned with disbelief about this news.
Enough for now. I'll write about something different tomorrow.
Thank you for visiting my website.
2005 March 24 Thursday
I found out today that 3 of my students have been accepted to the Asahikawa East High School. This high school is considered to be THE TOP RATED HIGH SCHOOL in this city. Reason being, it is the high school with the most graduates that go on to study at the Big Name Universities in Japan. In this country, academic record is a very important thing. It is more important WHERE you went to school than WHAT you studied while you were there. However, if you can't learn what is required to pass the many examinations that are administered throughout the school year, and most importantly, the entrance examinations of the top rated high schools and universities, you can't get into those schools. Therefore, these three students of mine are very, very good students. They did very well here at my classroom as well. Congratulations guys! (two girls and one boy). You've got three years of high school ahead of you, and then, the university entrance examinations. Do your best. I will always be your supporter. Of course, these three kids are not the only students of mine who have gone on to enter elite high schools and then elite universities, but this is the most recent group. Others have gone on to the Asahikawa Medical College, Waseda University, Tokyo University, Hokkaido University etc. etc. I feel that I have played a very small, yet important role in there education process. Everybody wins, nobody loses. Another real world example of Job Satisfaction. Thank you Asahikawa!
2005 March 23 Wednesday
Classes started at 15:00 and ended at 20:00. After that I read some news at various sites on the internet. Not much else to talk about today. The snow continues to melt and I may be able to go cycling this weekend. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
2005 March 22 Tuesday
Back to my regular work schedule today. Classes from 15:00 to 20:00. One of the girls who comes to my 19:00 class every Tuesday, just graduated from junior high. She will start high school in early April at the Asahikawa Commercial High School. After today's lesson, her mother told me that her daughter has been accepted into the International Business Course offered by the school because she had passed the English Language Listening Proficiency Examination administered by the school. Her mother continued to say that "It was possible because my daughter has been taking English conversation lessons here at your classroom. Thank you very much." Hey, I'm just doing my job! A job that I love, by the way. Talk about job satisfaction! Everybody wins and nobody loses. Isn't that the way the world should be? You can read an old essay that I wrote about Job Satisfaction by clicking here. On another note, the father of an elementary school student who attends my classroom, is a medical doctor and works in the Department of Neurology at a well known hospital in Asahikawa. Yesterday, he sent me an English language research report about Parkinson's disease that he had written, and asked me to proof-read it for any errors in English. It was a 31 page report, and I only found 3 words that were not correct. All of them were prepositions. Good job Dr. M! Your English is excellent, and your daughter is an intelligent girl. Thank you for coming to my classroom.
According the the Hokkaido Newspaper evening edition, the weather for tomorrow will be sunny with a high temperature +8C, low of +3C and a 0% chance of precipitation. If it's really true, the snow will continue to melt. Yeah!
2005 March 21 Monday
Today is a national
holiday in Japan so a lot of people were out and about. The weather was
partly sunny and cold, no snow and no rain. According to the newspaper,
4,717 people turned out for yesterday's VASA Skiing Competition. If I
remember correctly, the one I participated in way back in 1994 had more than
8000 participants. However, this year as in every year, a lot of
non-Japanese folk come to Asahikawa and participate in this event. This is
good for international relations.
After I went to the Western Super Market in Nagayama to buy some foodstuffs, I spent the rest of the day, printing and laminating 52, full color, A3 size posters which I will post around the city to advertise my classroom. It took a lot of time and a lot of Ink-Jet Printer ink to get the job done, but it really didn't cost that much. Anyway, everything I make for my classroom is hand-made and original. Yes, that is the new poster over there on the left side of this block of text.
Tomorrow is forecast to be another spring-like day. We shall see.
2005 March 20 Sunday
Today is the Spring Equinox and it does in fact look a bit like spring today. Should be a nice day for the VASA. March 11 was my wife's birthday but on that day I had to attend a graduation party for the Kosei Nursing School at the Grand Hotel so we couldn't celebrate it then. Instead, we celebrated it today by going to a very popular Yakiniku restaurant called KinKaRo. You can visit their website by clicking here. There are two of them in this city. We walked to the one on 1 Jodori. We got there at about 18:30 and as usual, it was very crowded with many people waiting for a table. We wrote our name down on the waiting list and after about 40 minutes, we got a table. The meal was delicious and as expected, we ate too much. So much for the diet thing. I'll start that again tomorrow. After we finished eating we intended to walk back home, but it started raining! Yes, rain not snow! I was happy to see the rain except for the fact that we didn't have any umbrellas with us so we flagged down a passing taxi and got back home that way. Maybe tomorrow we can go for a real walk.
2005 March 19 Saturday
The snow continues to melt and the main roads are mostly clear. Could it really be true that spring starts tomorrow? That's what the calendar says. However, in Asahikawa the cherry blossoms do not bloom until May. Yes, that's right, I said May. Can't wait? Want to see the cherry blossoms sooner? Well, I have some good news for you! You can see some photos that I took of them on May 18, 2000 at the Otokoyama Nature Park by clicking here. If you have never been to this park before, I recommend that you visit it during April and May. You can see a variety of flowers including dog tooth violets. The park is very easy to find. Drive north on route 40 through the Suehiro District and into Higashi Takasu Town. Just before you get to the Pippu Tunnel, there will be a sign and a turn off to your right. There is plenty of free parking and a place to get some food and drink as well. You can visit the park's website by clicking here. Tomorrow is the Spring Equinox, also called the Vernal Equinox. This day is a national holiday in Japan. But since tomorrow is Sunday, the holiday will be observed on Monday, March 21. March 20 will also be the date of the VASA International Cross Country Skiing Competition which is held every year on this day in Asahikawa. I participated in it one time in 1994. It was raining on that day! There were puddles of water at the bottom of the hills along the course. I fell down and got soaking wet. Once was enough for me. I think the reason they hold it on this day in Asahikawa, is so that the city can proclaim that it is the site of the final VASA Ski Meet of the season. Yes, it is. Every year. You can read more about the Swedish origins of the VASA Skiing Competition by clicking here. You can read more about the VASA in Asahikawa by clicking here.
Slushy streets and sidewalks, sleety snow falling for most of the day. This is one of those seasons in between seasons. Today, there were graduation ceremonies at many of the elementary schools in the city. One of them was at the Kagura Elementary School which is very near to my classroom. In fact, two students who come to my classroom were graduating today so I went to see the ceremony and take some photos. You can see the photos by clicking here. This was the 83rd graduation ceremony for Kagura Elementary School. It has a rather long history. Today there were 57 graduating students. More girls than boys. Most of them will go to Kagura Junior High School which was newly rebuilt at a different location about 5 years ago. In Japan, students begin to study English starting in junior high school unless they have already been attending another classroom such as mine. The two students of mine who graduated today have already studied English at my classroom for about 3 years, so they are way ahead of the crowd. Good luck guys! Enjoy your 3 years at junior high school.
2005 March 17 Thursday
Melting snow and puddles of ice cold dirty water all over the place. As I mentioned in last Tuesday's BLOG, I gave a speech at the Asahikawa West Rotary Club meeting. Today, they sent me two copies of the weekly Meeting Report. Along with a photograph of me, there was the entire text of my speech. At first I thought, they downloaded it from my website. But upon closer inspection, I discovered that the printed version of my speech was not as I had written it, but as I had delivered it at the meeting that day. In other words, someone had recorded the audio of the my speech and then later transcribed it onto paper. I wonder if they have some kind of voice recognition software to help them get this job done. If not, someone had to spend a lot of time, listening to the voice recording and then manually typing the words into a PC. Wow! What a job! Anyway, I am grateful to the persons who take the time to make this weekly Meeting Report. My hat is off to you. You can see a scan of the Weekly Report by clicking here.
2005 March 16 Wednesday
Another day of melting snow. Come on sunshine! After my regular schedule of classes to day, I posted an English translation that I did in 1999 of a stage play. The stage play was written by Soh Kuramaoto and is called HASHIRU. In English it means RUN. You can read the English translation of this stage play by clicking here. Soh Kuramoto is a very famous writer in Japan. One of his best known dramas was a made for television series called 北の国から, From the North Country. It was so popular in fact that people from all over Japan as well as many other Asian countries came to visit Furano, Hokkaido where the TV show was filmed. It has made Furano a very well known location. Furano is also very famous for its lavender fields. I will put new photo gallery of Furano's lavender farms on this website in the near future. Please check back again.
2005 March 15 Tuesday
The sun was shinning and the snow was melting. Hope for a new springtime. When I looked at the evening addition of the Hokkaido Newspaper this evening, I noticed that the weather forecast said that tomorrow will be another warm and sunny day. But after that, there will be 3 days of SNOW! What the ........? It's not yet spring? No, not yet. On Monday March 21, it will be the Spring Equinox. Also known as the Vernal Equinox. Vernal means GREEN. Yeah, right! It still looks mighty WHITE around here. Anyway, every year on the Vernal Equinox, Asahikawa plays host to the VASA International Cross Country Skiing Competition. More about that in next Monday's BLOG. Suffice it say that the weather in Asahikawa during mid-March is very unpredictable. On another note, I have added a new photo gallery to this website. It is about a Pub Restaurant that I visit often. A place called Ohfune. You can see the Photo Gallery by clicking here. Other than that, there is not much to talk about today. See ya again tomorrow!
2005 March 14 Monday
Today is White Day in Japan. Say What??? Never heard of it? Think back exactly one month ago to February 14. Ring a bell? Yep! That is the annual date of Valentine's Day. When I lived in the USA, Valentine's Day meant that boys would give a greeting card or a gift of some kind to a girl. Here in Japan, it's just the opposite. Do you mean, women give gifts to men on Valentine's Day? Yes, that is precisely what I mean. Does this mean that the women really like the men that they are giving the chocolate to? No, not necessarily. In fact, the Japanese language has a special term for this occasion, "Giri Choko". It means, "Obligation Chocolate". Say What??? This expression originated with the OL (Office Ladies), single women who live at home with their parents and make a pretty good income by working at some company on a fulltime or part time basis. They feel obligated to give a gift, usually chocolate, to their male superiors at the office in order to stay in good favor with them. Well, it's not really that important but, if you don't do it, and everyone else does, you look like a jerk. So anyway, back to White Day. What is this really all about? Well, the men who received a gift from the women on Valentine's Day now feel obligated to return the favor and buy an equally inexpensive gift for the women. And thus the cycle perpetuates itself, year after year. Go figure. I have my suspicions about the origin of this custom. I believe that the confectionary makers got together and said, "How can we increase our annual sales?" The answer was a reversal of the American Valentine's Day custom, and the introduction of White Day. Well, guess what. It worked! Another example of innovative marketing. Learn from the masters.
2005 March 13 Sunday
Not a very nice day weather wise. Went for a drive to do some essential shopping came back home and did some work writing another new page for a junior high school English textbook. Tomorrow's another day.
2005 March 12 Saturday
Another snowy but not very cold day. Gray skies and slush filled streets. Not a very nice day to be out and about. I guess I'll put together a new photo gallery of 160 pictures that I took during my summer time trip to Hakodate between July 27 and July 30 of 2003. You can view the new photo gallery by clicking here.
2005 March 11 Friday
One of the members of the 英会話を楽しむ会 which is held every Monday from 13:30 until 14:30 at the 神楽公民館 sent me 6 photos by email that her friend who visited Kyoto had taken. I liked the photos so much, that I asked for permission to put them on my website. Permission was granted and you can view the photos by clicking here. Thank you Mrs. T! As you can see from the photos, the weather in Kyoto is very much different than it is in Asahikawa. Now, I can't wait for spring. Snow be gone! This morning from 11:00 to 12:40 I attended the graduation ceremony at the Kosei Nursing School. I go to it every year. The school used to be located in the city behind the Kosei Hospital but last year they built a brand new school way out in the middle of the countryside near the Asahiyama Zoo. It is a beautiful facility and I enjoy going there to teach my English classes. However, it is rather far away and I had to leave right after the ceremony and before the group photo was taken because I had a private lesson at my classroom starting at 13:30. I made it back just in time. After that, I had two more lessons from 15:00 to 17:00. At 19:00, the graduation party for the same school was held on the 3rd floor of the Grand Hotel. After that, the second party was held at Hijack ON. You can see photos of all three events by clicking here. After the second party I stopped by a coffee shop and met my friend from New York City who is a professional oil painter. He spends about half of the year in New York and half in Asahikawa. I own two of his oil paintings and one of his silkscreen prints which I display proudly in my classroom. You can visit the artist's website by clicking here. I sat there in the coffee shop and talked with him until about 2:00 am. Today was a long but enjoyable day.
2005 March 10 Thursday
It continued to snow all day and all night yesterday. Finally, at about noon today, it stopped. My prayers to the Snow Gods had been heard. However I hadn't used my car for three days, the result can be seen below.
You can also see
the big pile of snow behind my rig and the black color of the asphalt in between
them. It is no exaggeration to say that snow removal is a huge expense to
the city of Asahikawa and to the citizens who own parking lots.
In the case of this parking lot, the building owner has to pay for a shovel car to remove the snow from the parking area and put it in that big pile that you can see behind my mini-van. Then, a big dump truck comes to the parking lot and the shovel car fills it up until all of the snow in the pile is gone.
The dump truck then takes the loads of snow to one of the many designated dumping areas and deposits it there. There are many such areas in and around the city, mostly in vacant lots, where the snow is dumped. As you can imagine, the piles of snow at the dump sites get very big. I have seen some that are as tall as a 7 story building.
These dump sites must be constantly groomed with a small road grader type of machine to keep them from becoming a hazard to the people who walk by at the base of them when going to and fro during their daily activities. These huge piles of snow are so massive that it takes until the middle of June before they completely melt away. The good news is that a lot of people can get a job doing this type of work and the economy is somewhat stimulated by this activity. It is a job that has to be done, and somebody has to do it. Thanks guys!
2005 March 9 Wednesday
Oh Snow Gods! Have you no mercy? Why do you pound down on us day and night? When is enough, enough? Well, at least I can still see some of my car. If you don't have four wheel drive up here, you're crazy.
And yes, it is STILL SNOWING. Maybe you can't see it very well in this daytime photo, but it is still coming down hard and heavy. One good thing about all of this snow is that there is never a water shortage in this city, even during the hottest months of the summer. The tap water here is safe to drink and it even tastes good. Can you say that about the tap water in Tokyo?
It is now 9:00pm and the snow is still coming down. If you want to see what it looks like, look at the photo below, and in your mind, add about 30 cm of fresh snow. I am not exaggerating! It is unseasonably cold and snowy for this time of year. This may be a good sign for the VASA International Cross Country Skiing Competition that is held in Asahikawa on The Spring Equinox every year. In most years, there isn't enough snow for the event so, sometimes they have to haul it in by truck. I have participated in this event only one time. That was in 1994. It was raining that day. I choose the shortest course, 5km. I remember standing at the top of a hill and seeing a big water puddle below me. I am not a good skier, because I only go snowboarding. However on this occasion, I had no choice but to ski down the hill and through the ice cold pond of water that awaited me at the bottom. My cross-country skis have no metal edge and are difficult for me to maneuver. As expected, I lost control of my direction and crashed into the frozen float awaiting me. Of course I was soaked to the bone and I still had 3km to go before I reached the finish line. That was the first, and the last time that I participated in the VASA. I think the reason that the Asahikawa VASA is held every year on March 21 is so that the city can say that this is the last VASA of the year. It does make some sense. On another subject. I saw on the JNN News Channel today, where somebody had used a backhoe (shovel car) to completely destroy an ATM and steal about 1,000,000 yen in cash. Can you picture this? Some guy steals a large piece of construction equipment, and then uses it for the destruction of an ATM. This is not the first time this type of crime has occurred, but what amazes me, is the gall of the people who commit this type of robbery. They must be very desperate for cash. And why didn't anybody notice and report to the police, a backhoe driving around in a parking lot next to an ATM. Was it an inside job?
2005 March 8 Tuesday
Yesterday was nice and sunny. The temperature reached as high as 8 degrees C. The snow was melting like ice cream on a hot summer's day. The roads were wet and black. The parking lot in front of my classroom was clear of snow. And then this......
Yes, I know what you're thinking. This photo wasn't taken today. This is an archived photo from some other time with a fake label added to it. Well, guess again. This is the Real McCoy. Yeah, it started blowing and snowing since early this morning. The sun came out and offered a ray of hope between 12:30 and 15:30 but it was rejected by the snow gods and the blizzard went into its second stage. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I love the snow. It is beautiful. I wish I had the time to go snowboarding today, but I don't. Maybe tomorrow? Nope. Too busy then too.
The reason I posted this photo is to let all of you folks who are thinking of moving up here to great wide open spaces of Hokkaido, to think again. Can you handle it? A lot of the photos in my various photo galleries might give you the impression that every day is a warm and sunny day in Asahikawa. Check out the evidence to the contrary. It's that photo, right there in front of your eyes.
As I mentioned before, I was scheduled to give a speech at the Asahikawa West Rotary Club meeting today. And, I did. I had only practiced giving the speech a few times and every time I tried it, I ran over the time limit of 20 minutes. I couldn't really cut anything out of the speech or it would lose its continuity. I mean, I had a non-fiction story to tell and I could have gone on for hours. So anyway, I get up to give my speech and everything started out OK. When I was about half way through it, I noticed that I was running behind schedule so I started talking faster. As expected, I started making mistakes. If you have ever been to a Rotary Club meeting before, you know that they are very punctual and always to everything according to a strict schedule. So, I had no choice but to talk like a chain saw. I finished my speech just in the nick of time and was rewarded with a warm round of applause. Thanks guys! By the way, it is now about 9:40 pm and the big white flakes are still pounding down. I wonder if I will be able to find my car in the morning?
2005 March 7 Monday
I finished writing and correcting my speech for the Rotary Club Meeting tomorrow. I had my wife make a recording of it onto a CD and I have been listening to it all day. Also, I finished the English translation of it and have posted it to the ESSAYS section of this website. You can read it by clicking here. My first class of the day was the 英会話を楽しむ会 at the 神楽公民館 . One of the ladies who comes every week had taken a look at my new website and sent me an email to tell me that she liked it very much. She mentioned the essay entitled Learning Japanese. You can read it by clicking here. She even printed out 2 copies on her home computer and brought them to today's class. She recommended that everyone read this essay because it contains some useful advice for them when learning English. Several of the members of this class do not have a personal computer and therefore have no access to the internet. So, she gave them the printed out copies and suggested that they read the essay. Thank you for your support Mrs. T! Again today, the 15:00 and 16:00 classes at my classroom were cancelled because the students had a cold or a fever. I too have a sore throat and a stuffy nose. I hope I can make my speech tomorrow without sounding like a fog horn.
2005 March 6 Sunday
I got an email today from a guy who used to come to my classroom for lessons. He told me that he had taken a look at my new website and had enjoyed reading the BLOG and the essays. He mentioned the essay on the Star Spangled Banner which is the National Anthem of the USA. He also sent me a link to The Dixie Chicks website where they sing this song. You can read the essay and listen to the song by clicking here. This guy is a big fan of the Dixie Chicks. He has even gone all the way to the USA on several occasions just to see them in concert!!! He must the the world's biggest fan of the Dixie Chicks. Not only that, but also has a large collection of country and western music CDs. I have borrowed some of them from him and made a copy for my own listening pleasure. Today, I need to finish writing the speech that I will be giving at The Rotary Club meeting on Tuesday, March 8. The speech will be in Japanese and is titled 私と外国語. It is about my experiences learning, using and teaching foreign languages. I will post the speech in the original Japanese along with my English translation of it in the ESSAYS section of this website in a few days.
2005 March 5 Saturday
I had a private lesson at 11:00 this morning to help a high school girl prepare for her final exam in English at her high school. As you can imagine, I was feeling a little shaky after last nights big blowout, but I managed to do my job just fine. After that my wife an I went to the big shopping area in the Nagayama District called Western to buy some food items we can't get next door at the Co-op. The snow is beginning to melt and the asphalt was wet and easy to drive on. Western usually has some good rye bread for sale but today they were all sold out. Also, they have a purified drinking water machine which you can use for free once you have purchased the plastic 4 liter water bottles. I have already bought two of them last year so now every time I go, I fill them up. After that we came home and made some beef stew. Yum yum!
2005 March 4 Friday
Wow! What a night that was! More about that later. First of all, my teaching day started off at 13:30 when the two ladies that come every week at this time came for their lesson. As usual we had a great time. They told me that they had visited the Asahiyama Zoo last Saturday and said that it was very crowded. Lots of tour buses in the parking lot. In recent years, many tour groups from Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and several other Asian countries are coming to visit Hokkaido. One of they attractions of the winter zoo is the Penguin Walk. Almost every day in the late morning, the penguins are let out of their penguin house so they can walk in a big group down to the front gate, take a rest and then walk back up the hill to their penguin house. I've never seen this myself, but many of my students have told me about it. After that lesson was finished, I had two children's lessons. One at 15:00 and another at 16:00. When that was over, I changed my clothes and walked over to the Grand Hotel which is across from the city hall so I could attend the graduation party for the Hokkaido Nursing Academy in Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院 I go to this event every year and always enjoy myself. This year the event started at 18:00 and I arrived just in time. The food this year was really good. I wonder if they have a new chef? After a few short speeches and a CHEERS! everyone sat down to eat. After about 30 minutes, the first event started, a BINGO game. As usual, I didn't win anything. Next there were a couple of groups of girls who performed some dances. Finally, all of the graduating students got up on stage and sang two songs as a chorus group. Their singing was very good. After that, a famous old professor got up to give the final speech and the party was over. As usual, a second party was held directly after this one at a location in the city's bar district known as San Roku. This year the party was held a WAVE 2条〜３条仲通り７丁目 ダイメックスプラザ１番館４F I have been to this same place in years past. As usual, the newly graduated students got wild and crazy. This party ended at about 22:30. You can see the photos I took of both events by clicking here. After the second party was over, I went to my favorite hangout 座敷居酒屋 大舟 www.oofune.com I didn't know it before I arrived there but today was the eldest son Hirofumi's birthday! So, after he was finished with work we both went to our favorite Karaoke Snack れいく and stayed there until about 02:30. Wow! What a night that was.
2005 March 3 Thursday
No classes this morning so I graded the tests that I had administered to the 2nd year students at the Hokkaido Nursing Academy 北海道立旭川高等看護学院 last Friday. Most of them did very well, but one girl didn't even finish the whole test. I guess she didn't have enough time to study for it. During this time of the year, these students have many examinations and reports to write so they must all be suffering from a lack of sleep. Fortunately, the school year will be over soon. By the way, tomorrow morning is the graduation ceremony for the 3rd year students of this same school. And then starting at 6 pm will be the graduation party at the Grand Hotel. I go to this party every year and I always have a good time. Most of the students are female, but in recent years, male students have also been studying at this school. At the graduation party the young ladies wear beautiful dresses of all kinds. It makes me feel happy but it also makes me feel old. Oh, if only I were young again! I will take some photos and post them on this website in the photo gallery section. On a different subject, another new student joined my classroom today. Well, actually she is not new because she attended classes here for a short while during her high school days. Since then she has spent some time living and working in Australia and as you can imagine, she speaks English very well now. The reason she started coming to my classroom again is so that she will not forget how to speak English while she is living here in Japan. You know what they say, Use it or Lose it. It really is true. Even though I speak Japanese more often that I speak English nowadays, I never forget it because I am using it every day in my work. I also read various websites everyday and I listen to the BBC radio on the internet as well. If you have never listened to the BBC on the internet, check it out here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ I hate to admit it but I like British English better than American English. Yes, it's true, and now I've said it where the whole world can see it. The reason I teach my students American English is because that's what I know best. Sometimes I wish I had been born in Great Britain but it's a bit to late for that now isn't it.
2005 March 2 Wednesday
A university where I teach English part time is implementing a new eLearning system for the first year student's English classes. Today I attended a demonstration on how to use the system. It was interesting for me because I have never had the chance to use an internet-based learning system before. I enjoyed using it. I asked the representative if they had eLearning courses for other languages besides English, and he said no. I recently started learning Korean and also brushing up on my Chinese by listening to CDs, mostly when I'm driving. An eLearning program for learning these languages would be useful and interesting. Well, anyway I think that the first year students will be able to improve their English ability a lot with this new eLearning system, IF they use it as intended AND come to the class every time. Because English is a required course for all freshman, there will always be some students who don't have any interest in learning English. They will not come to class no matter how it is taught. The other students should benefit greatly from this new system. I am looking forward to the start of the new school year in April.
2005 March 1 Tuesday
Out of the 11 students that were scheduled to come to classes today, only one did! The big reason? Everybody has either a cold or the flu. Some of the schools around the city were also closed in recent days because of the influenza that is going around. I hope I don't catch it!
2005 February 28 Monday
Last night's Karaoke marathon left me with a sore throat and a lack of sleep. Fortunately, I didn't have to teach any classes until 1:30pm so I could sleep until about 10:00am. At 13:30, I went to the 英会話を楽しむ会 at the 神楽公民館 . We all had a good time and an interesting exchange of information as usual. After that, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. At 15:00 a new student joined my classroom. A little 5 year old girl who goes to kindergarten. I was very impressed by this little girl because she was able to repeat the words I was saying with perfect pronunciation! Even the V and TH sounds were no problem for her. I think she will be able to speak English just like a native speaker in the future. The lady who comes to the 19:00 class on Mondays brought me a gift from Kyoto were she had visited last weekend. It was a confectionary called Yatsuhashi Chocolate Crunch. It had three different flavors. Chocolate, white chocolate and green tea flavor. I like the green tea flavor best. I seldom eat sweet things, but this stuff is really good. Thank you for the nice gift!
Another snowstorm today. There must have been at least 20 cm of new snow. At 5:00 pm I had an appointment to meet one of the members of my 英会話を楽しむ会 that meets every Monday at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館。 She was also going to bring along an American boy who is here as part of the Sister City exchange program with Bloomington-Normal Illinois. He is 18 years old and will be going back to the USA at the end of July to start college. Right now he is attending a high school in Asahikawa and has made a lot of friends. Also, he has learned how to speak Japanese quite well but his reading and writing are still at the beginner level. For those of you unfamiliar with the Japanese Language, let me just say that the written language is by far the most complex in the world today. Even if you studied it every day for 5 or 6 hours a day, it would take you about 5 years to learn how to read a newspaper. Anyway, after we met at the ASH building, we went to eat dinner at 座敷居酒屋 大舟 my favorite restaurant in this city. Check out their website here www.oofune.com We got a private room upstairs and ordered a course dinner. As usual, everything was very delicious. At 7:00 pm we finished our dinner and went to SHIDAX to sing Karaoke. I love to sing Karaoke and I often go together with the eldest son of the owner of 大舟. But today, I would be singing for the first time at SHIDAX. It is a very new and clean place and they have thousands of songs in Japanese, English and even Korean. I can sing many songs in Japanese, but not yet in Korean. After about 2 hours of singing, the American exchange student had to go back home to his host family by 10:00 pm. The member of my 英会話を楽しむ会 also went back home at the same time. It was only 9:30 pm and I was just getting warmed up for some more singing. So, I went back to 大舟 to see if my Japanese big brother wanted to go singing with me after he finished work. He did and we went. The place where we usually go, れいく , was closed so went to another place that I had never been to before. As it turned out, we continued singing until 2:30 am. Wow! The next morning I had a sore throat but other than that, I felt fine.
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