Asahikawa American English Conversation School
for May 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 May 31 Tuesday
A very warm and sunny day. My teaching day started at 9:00 at Asahikawa University in the computer room where the students are using an internet based program to study reading and listening comprehension in English. Today, after their first reading lesson was finished, I got up in front of the class and asked the students some questions about what they had just read. Some of the students could answer and some couldn't. Some of them were not at all interested. After that, the students had an internet based listening comprehension lesson. I gave them about 20 minutes to do that. Then, I made them do some pronunciation practice by repeating after me as I read the very same dialogue that they had just listened to. Most of the students seemed to enjoy this more. Then I selected a few of the students to come up to the front of the class and do the dialogue with me. Some enjoyed this and others didn't. I guess it depends on whether or not a person is interested in learning a foreign language. I always have been, some people never will be. It's freedom of choice, except when it is a required class. After that was finished at 12:10, I came back to my classroom, ate lunch and got ready for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. When that was finished, I did some searches on the internet to find other eLEARNING websites that have online classes in English and other foreign languages. I only found a few. Some of them were very well designed and built. It inspired me to study even harder about making my own interactive eLEARNING website. That's how I spent the rest of the evening. Studying. It's endless.
2005 May 30 Monday
Another
warm and sunny day. Almost like summer. I got up at about 5:00 and
got to work putting together the photo gallery for FukiAge Spa you can see one
of the photos on the left and all of the photos by
clicking here. Yesterday's hot spring experience was really nice.
I will be going there again in the near future. My first class of the day
started at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. I told everybody about my drive
yesterday and also gave them a copy of the CQ test (Children Quotient) that was
written in Japanese. You can take the test in either English or Japanese
by
clicking here. This seems to be the latest fad in business
management. I scored very high on the test, which means I still think like
a child, in many ways. I guess that is a good thing because I still like
to laugh a lot and I really enjoy my work. Also, I am very curious about
learning new things, and am very busy doing so. One of the other students
talked about the Korean and Chinese laborers who were brought to Hokkaido and
many other parts of Japan as slaves. He said that there was a grave yard
and a monument to them in Higashikawa 東川 near a place called the Water Park
遊水公園. I have been to this park before, but I never noticed the sign that
points toward the grave yard. I will look for it the next time I am in the
area. After that, it was straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00.
Then, I went for a 70 minute walk on the cycling road near my classroom that
runs along the Biei 美瑛川 and the Chubetsu Rivers 忠別川. It was rather warm
and the sky was mostly clear. I could see Jupiter and many other heavenly
bodies shining brightly. Then it was time for dinner. Lights out at
1:00 a.m.
2005 May 29 Sunday
Today
was a much better day. It was warm and sunny with a slight breeze. I
got up early and went to work learning more about how to make a better website.
At about 15:30, my wife and I went for a drive in the warm and sunny afternoon.
As usual, we headed south towards Biei 美瑛, Shirogane 白金, and Tokachi Dake 十勝岳. The
snow melt on the mountains was very noticeable and it is starting to feel almost
like summer. Along the way, we saw a female dear grazing along the
roadside. She was so hungry that I was able to get out of my car and take
a few photos of her while she was pre-occupied with eating as much as possible.
The deer in Hokkaido, known as Ezo Shika, have a rough time of it in the winter.
There is not much food, and when spring comes, the survivors relish every moment
that is available for feeding. Such was the doe in the photo on the left.
After I took some photos of this wonder of nature, we headed for FukiAge Spa
吹上温泉. This is a place where anybody can take a free outdoor bath in a
100% natural hot spring that is of excellent quality. Check out the photo
gallery of this wonderful natural hot spring by
clicking here. Suffice it to say that this is my most favorite of all natural outdoor hot
tubs that I have ever visited in Hokkaido. Not only does the hot water have almost no smell, but
it is smooth and slippery, and the temperature is just right at about 42 degrees
C. I will write more about this later in a separate essay. Stay tuned. More coming soon.
2005 May 28 Saturday
I had no classes today, and I didn't feel very energetic even though the weather was quite nice. I spent most of the day sleeping and reading. What a waste of time. I will probably get up very early tomorrow and do something productive. Some days, I just can't get my engine started. I need to recharge my battery.
2005 May 27 Friday
My first class of the day was at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing School of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Today's topic was Golden Week. I handed out a one page list of the roads I traveled and the towns and cities I went through then I explained, in English, about what I saw and what I did each day. Then, I asked the students to take out a sheet of notebook paper and write about how they spent their golden week. I allowed them the entire remainder of the class time to write it. Most of them did quite well with the project. After that was finished at 10:30, I came back to my classroom, took out the garbage and had lunch at a restaurant across the street called Steak Victoria. This is a chain restaurant owned by Big Boy Japan. They have a lunch menu where you can have a steak with rice or bread, an all you can eat salad bar and soup bar, all for less than $10. So, sometimes when I want to stuff my face, I go there for lunch. After lunch, I had a private lesson with two delightful ladies from 13:30 until 14:30. After that it was straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Again this evening, I spent about one hour playing the folk guitar. Lights out at 2:00 a.m.
2005 May 26 Thursday
My first order of business for the day was to attend a Korean Language class starting at 13:00 and held at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). The class is being taught by a professor from the Hokkaido Education College of Asahikawa. It is always interesting and informative. Today, at the beginning of class, he talked about the importance of having the curiosity to always learn something new, no matter what it is that you are studying or doing for a living. I agree 120%. After that, we learned about how numbers are used in the Korean Language. Like Japanese, Korean has two sets of numbers. When I first started learning Japanese, this was a source of great confusion for me but not any more. After that was finished at 14:30, I hurried back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then it was time for dinner and work on various other projects related to my classroom. Lights out a 11:00.
2005 May 25 Wednesday
My first class of the 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). First I gave back the short compositions that each student wrote last time about their golden week. There were many common grammatical mistakes such as; "I was go to_____" instead of the correct; "I went to_____" Also, "I went to shopping." Instead of the more common "I went shopping" but overall, the writing was pretty good. English grammar and Japanese grammar are very different. Especially with the verb tenses in English having many irregular forms. In Japanese, there are only about 6 irregular verbs, so if you learn the stem of a verb, you can just plug it into the verb endings that show the; past, present, future, past participle etc. Korean seems to be much the same way. Then, I started the students on English conversation practice. I used page one of my original textbook American English for all Occasions 日常表現. This textbook starts out with "Hello! My name is _______. It is nice to meet you." and progresses to the point were the two people in the story decide to go see an Inoue Yosui concert in Sapporo. They meet at Asahikawa Station and take the train to Sapporo, have lunch at a Mexican restaurant, walk around Odori Park and then take the subway to the Makomanai Ice Arena to see the concert. The first 5 pages of this textbook are quite easy for most Japanese people to learn and remember but starting with page six, it gets a bit more difficult and so far, only one of my students has managed to finish the entire textbook. Good Job Kuni! After that class was over, I drove over to Asahikawa University to take one of my Korean Language classes. This class emphasizes mostly reading and writing. I have learned how to read and write very basic words and phrases from this class. Very useful. After that was finished at 12:10, I came back to my classroom to eat lunch and get ready for my classes from 15:00 until 20:00. After the last class, my wife and I went for a 90 minute walk along the cycling road that goes along the Biei River and the Chubetsu River. The big orange moon tonight was awesome. After that I watched an American TV show on the internet using a link that one of my students had sent me. Thanx Kuni! Then it was dinner time and lights out at 1:30.
2005 May 24 Tuesday
My first class of the day started at 9:00 at Asahikawa University. This year I must use the computer lab for all of the first semester and I can't do as much hands-on teaching as I have done every year in the past. Before, I have always had conversation practice with each and every student each and every time in each and every class. They had a lot of speaking practice. This year it is only reading and listening practice, twice a week, every week. Wouldn't it be better to have one class a week in the computer lab doing reading and listening, and the other class each week in an ordinary classroom doing speaking and writing? I think it would be, but nobody seems to want my opinion. If I ran my classroom that way, I would be out of business in short order. Enough said. After that was over at 12:30, I came back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then, again tonight, more practice using the Macromedia software. I have a lot to learn. But that is good. For in my opinion, the whole purpose of our short lives is to learn as much as possible. I wonder what the people who play pachinko at MARUHAN every day think the meaning of life is. Masturbation? The owner of MARUHAN is doing the right thing. The customers are spending their money, and their short lives, wanking off. It's a wonderful life.
2005 May 23 Monday
My first class of the day started at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. There were various topics of discussion today including the story of the Korean man, who came over to Japan right after the second world war, decided to stay and took Japanese citizenship. He is now the owner of the MARUHAN Pachinko shops which are all over Japan. Even though this person had Japanese citizenship, he was refused entry into the Jaycess 青年会議所. Talk about blatant discrimination! But, that doesn't matter any more. He is a multi millionare. I myself have had a few years of experience with the Asahikawa Jaycees. Although I was treated well, I must say that most of them are not the brightest of all the businessmen which I have met in this town. Most of those guys belong to the Rotary Club. Anyway, that's another story. After that class was finished, it was time to go back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then I spent about 3 hours learning how to use Macromedia Freehand, a graphic design software. It is really interesting and much more powerful than anything I have ever used before. I am looking forward to using it with efficiency. Lights out at 1:30 a.m.
I woke up at 5:30 to a clear and sunny day. Just right, for the annual Sports Day event 運動会 at Kagura Elementary School 神楽小学校. I have been to this event 2 or 3 times before, but I have never posted any photos of it to my website. This year is different and you can see the photos by clicking here. I arrived at the school ground before 8:30 and was able to get a good location in the photographer's area near the finish line for the running races. I took most of the photos from that location. Unfortunately, the angle of the sun was such that I got a blue splash in the bottom of every photo that I took from there. I was able to edit out the visual disturbance, but then again, because of the back lighting, most of the photos are not that good. Anyway, I did the best I could, given the situation. As I mentioned before, it was a mostly clear and sunny day. As a result, I got a mild sunburn on my face and around my neck. I was wearing a fully brimmed hat but my face and neck were exposed. After about an hour and a half, I started to feel hot, so I moved into a shaded area. Even after that, I still felt a bit uncomfortable, so I decided to take a walk around the back of the school building and then return to my classroom. When I arrived back home, I immediately downloaded the photos from my camera onto my PC and then edited all of he good pix. This process took about 2 hours. I was a bit disappointed because the photos were not as good as I had hoped they would be. Anyway, for those of you who do not live in Japan, this may be an eye-opening experience into one of the requirements of the obligatory education system in this country. It has its good points, and it has its bad points. One thing that should be considered is that the literacy rate in Japan is about 99%. That's much higher than in the USA. Go figure! When comparing the written language of other countries with the Japanese writing system, any person can easily determine that the Japanese writing system is by far the most complicated in the world today. In other words, the sheer amount of written symbols that each and every elementary and junior high school student must memorize is enormous. Just to be able to read a newspaper, requires a major effort.
2005 May 21 Saturday
When I got up at about 9:00 I noticed that the streets were wet. It had been raining sometime this early morning. After that it was partly sunny and partly cloudy throughout the day. I spent the whole day reading and surfing the internet. I had planned to go take some photos of the cherry blossoms in various locations, but the lighting wasn't all that good and besides, I already have some really nice photos of them that I took on May 18, 2000 in Otokoyama Nature Park. You can see the photo gallery by clicking here. Tomorrow is Sports Day 運動会 at the Kagura Elementary School 神楽小学校. I will go and take some photos of the event and post them to this website. Many of the students who come to my classroom attend Kagura Elementary School and so does one of the teachers there. In fact, the students asked me to come and see them compete in the various events, so I will. I hope it is a warm and sunny day tomorrow.
2005 May 20 Friday
A nice and sunny day for a change. Even the wind was warm. I didn't have any classes until 14:00 today so I spent some time reading about the Macromedia Studio MX 2004 software suite which I will be using in the near future. My first class at 14:00 was a private lesson with the 2 nice ladies that come every week. Today, one of the ladies told me that her friend in Nayoro had just bought a new car and they went for a drive on Saturday. During the drive, there was a police speed trap set up along the highway and they stopped the three cars that were in front of them. My student and her friend were in the forth car and didn't get stopped. What a lucky break. I call this student "My Lucky Lady" because last summer when she went to Osaka, she bought one Summer Jumbo Lottery ticket 宝くじ for me. As it turned out, the ticket won 10,000 yen! I gave her a bottle of French wine as a return gift. Today's 17:00 lesson was cancelled because the students had other business, so I had more time to read. After the last lesson was finished at 20:00, I was back on the internet doing some research. Today, I read about the Electric Universe Theory. You can see the same website by clicking here. Then later on, I played the folk guitar for about an hour. Lights out at midnight.
2005 May 19 Thursday
An overcast, rainy, and later on, a very windy day. I have a Korean Language class at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校) which starts at 13:00 every Thursday. Before I went there, I drove over to Asahikawa University to pick up the car keys which I had so absent mindedly left in the teachers lounge the day before. Today's Korean Language class was interesting and informative as usual. From now on, the teacher will be writing things on the blackboard mostly using the Korean alphabet which is called Hangul. I have been studying Hangul since about one year ago so for me this is a good thing. However, for the other students at the Kosei Nursing School, the pace of this class may be a little bit too fast. In my case, it took me a few months of study to get to the point where I could read all of the basic letters in the alphabet. This is because, I have many other things that I must do and cannot devote as much time to the study of Korean as I would like too. The other students at Kosei are in the same boat. They have many other courses that they must study and don't have enough time to really learn Hangul as it should be learned. None the less, the class is well worth their time, and they will learn many valuable lessons. During today's Korean Language lesson, the professor explained how the "letters" of Hangul were invented by a Korean scholar named SeiJon in 1443. This scholar based his writing system on the actual shape of the human vocal organs as they are used in speech! What an ingenious way to create a writing system! Before that time, Korean was written using Chinese Ideographs as was Japanese during that same time period. As such, Hangul is probably the newest as well as the most logical of all the phonetic writing systems used in the world today. This is another interesting fact about a language which not very many people speak as their first language. After that, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then, it was back to the books to study how to use the Macromedia Studio MX 2004 software suite. I can't wait until I can create some actual content to post on this website. Stay tuned. More coming soon.
2005 May 18 Wednesday
I got up early today because I have a class at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校) which starts at 8:50. As usual, about 20 minutes before my departure, I wanted to start the engine of my van by remote control from my classroom. However, when I looked in my carry bag for the key chain with the remote engine starter gizmo attached, I couldn't find it. So, I looked everywhere in my classroom, in the pockets of my coat, pants, shirts, everywhere. I still couldn't find it. "That's odd" I thought to myself. "I never lose important stuff like this. Maybe, it fell out of my carry bag yesterday, down onto the floor of my van when I made a sudden stop, while I was driving to Asahikawa University. So, when I was ready to leave, I searched everywhere in my van, but I still could not find my keys. "Where did I put them?" I wondered out loud. I drove to the Kosei Nursing school and arrived about 10 minutes before the start of class. Today's topic was, "How I spent my Golden Week." I gave the students a copy of my one page travel route for the 5 day road trip that I took along the entire coastline of southern Hokkaido, and then explained to them, mostly in English, what I did and what I saw every day. Then I asked them, to write a short composition about how they spent their GW. I gave them the entire remainder of the class time to write it. Some students wrote a lot, some students wrote very little. Seeing this, I wrote on the blackboard: "三行半より, 長い作文を書いてください." Most of the students did not understand the meaning of "mikudari han." I explained to them that it is an old expression in Japanese that basically means, "I divorce you." There was laughter in the room. After that class was finished, I came back to my classroom. Again, I thought about when was the last time I used that key set. Suddenly I remembered that I had used the locker key at Asahikawa University yesterday. "Did I leave the key in the lock? Are my keys hanging from the locker? I called up the university office any asked the nice lady who answered the phone to please check the lockers in the teacher's lounge on the second floor. After she came back to the phone, she said "Yes. Your keys are hanging from the lock of the locker!" Oh my god! Have I lost my mind? What a stupid mistake. I need to be more careful in the future. I told her to keep my keys in the university office and that I would come by tomorrow and pick them up. She said that she would. After that, I had a full schedule from 15:00 until 20:00. The 16:00 lesson today was with a new student. A high school girl who may want to become an airline flight attendant in the near future. Of course, she must be able to speak English for her job. She came to my classroom on the recommendation of her cousin who has a son that attended my classroom for about 6 years until he enrolled in an elite high school in Sapporo. Anyway she came to the right classroom because that is my specialty. 話せる、使える、楽しい、米会話 is what I am in business to provide. Intensive English Conversation Training. After the last class was finished at 20:00 it was dinner time. Lights out at midnight.
2005 May 17 Tuesday
A somewhat cold and rainy day. Not a heavy rain, but rain none the less. I woke up early at about 5:30 am and I used my free time to finish posting the 5 new photo galleries of my golden week road trip through southern Hokkaido to this website. You can see the main menu of the photo gallery for my GW road trip by clicking here. At 8:20 I got in my van and drove to the university were I teach English part time. The two classes ran from 9:00 until 12:10. When that was finished, I drove back to my classroom and got ready for my classes which started at 15:00 and ended at 20:00. Today, because of various school trips, I didn't have to teach any classes until 17:00. I used my free time to read more about the Macromedia Studio MX 2004 software suite that I will be implementing in the very near future. As I was reading the book, I was amazed at the power of this software as compared to the software that I am using now. Wow! What a difference! I can see why the professionals use this stuff as opposed to what I am currently using. It really is a whole new world. After classes were finished at 20:00, it was back to studying the Studio MX 2004 software. I can't wait until I learn enough about it to actually produce some new stuff for this website. Stay tuned. More later.
2005 May 16 Monday
I woke up at about 5:30 this morning to a sunny day. I made some hot tea and then sat down to read one of the 6 books I recently purchased about how to use the Macromedia Studio MX software package which I bought in January. Today I read about how to create graphics using Freehand. Up to now I have been using Microsoft Photo Draw 2000 V2 for all of my photo editing and graphic designs and Front page 2002 for the layout and management of this website. They are easy to understand and use, especially if you are familiar with other Microsoft Office Suite products. However, recently I have wanted to use a more powerful suite of software so that I can make animations and more user interactive web pages for teaching English to my end users. The Macromedia Studio MX has all the power I need, but it is much more complicated to learn how to use well, so I am still in the learning phase and I have not yet produced anything with it. I hope to have some animation content on this website before the beginning of winter this year. After reading for about 4 hours, I went out and took my first bicycle ride of the year. Later than in years past but, earlier than last year. You can read about my first cycling day of last year by clicking here. It's a rather interesting story. Today I rode my mountain bike for about one hour along the Kagura Cycling road that goes from the Ryojin bridge by the Biei river and curves around to the Chubetsu river and then goes into Kagura Oka Park. I made about 3 circuits of the route today. After I got back to my classroom at 11:30, I took a shower and got ready for my first class of the day at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. There was a new member in the class today, the same person who visited last week. Thank you for joining our circle Mr. M! He had read my travel log on this website about the 5 day road trip I took during golden week and he told us about some of his camping experiences in past years. His English usage is very good and so is his pronunciation. Other members of the class talked about various other things. After that, it was back to my classroom for lessons from 15:00 -20:00. I think I will go for a walk this evening. I need more exercise.
2005 May 15 Sunday
A cold, cloudy day with light rain off and on. Not a very nice day to be outside. I'm glad I went for that drive yesterday. Today would not have been as enjoyable. I spent almost the entire day editing the remainder of the photos that I took during my 5 day road trip along the entire coastline of southern Hokkaido. Now, all I have to do is put them into slide shows and then I will post them on this website within the next few days. Went to bed rather early tonight. It's amazing how tired you can get by just sitting in front of a computer all day.
2005 May 14 Saturday
Another sunny day!
Today, my wife and I went for a drive to Minami Furano and Kanayama Lake.
The round trip was more than 200 kilometers. The sky was very clear and I
was able to take some nice photos of the mountains. As we were driving
along the road by Lake Kanayama, I saw some foxes as I rounded a corner. I
have seen foxes many, many times before. But today, for the first time, I
saw their young fox cubs. I took 13 nice photos of the cute little
critters. You can see the photos by
clicking
here. Also, there was a sort of fight going on. The mother
and father fox had some white bread that some tourist had given them and a crow
was watching them very closely, waiting for a chance to steal the bread.
The father fox hid the bread in a hole along the side of the road and went back
to get the cubs. During that time, the crow flew down to the hole by the
side of the road, snatched the bread and flew away. The father fox noticed
it immediately and ran after the crow barking, but it was too late. He had
lost his children's dinner. Good job dad! Who is the bird brain of
today, you or the crow? It's you big guy! Eat crow.
2005 May 13 Friday
Another sunny day! However the wind in rather cold. My teaching day started at 13:30 with a private lesson for two delightlful ladies. After that it was straight lessons from 15:00 until 19:00. I didn't have a lesson starting at 19:00 today. The student has other business to take care of. After that it was back to the editing of the photos I took during my 5 day road trip in golden week.
2005 May 12 Thursday
A sunny day! Not too cold and not too hot. Just right. I wonder when the cherry blossoms will come out? Maybe next week? On the Photo Gallery Main Menu page of this website, there is a link to a photo gallery of the Otokoyama Nature Park in Springtime. These photos were taken on May 18 of the year 2000. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom at that time. This year may be the same. I can't wait. On another note, I didn't have a Korean Language lesson at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校）today because the students were doing other things this week. So, my business day started rather late at 15:00 with my first class of the day in my own classroom. Classes continued until 20:00. Then I sat down at one of my PCs and wrote a new page for my original 小学生で学ぶ米会話 textbook, as well as another new page for my original 中学生で学ぶ米会話 textbook. These new textbooks are a big success. The students like them and their learning progression is much faster than before. Many of my students tell me that they take the time at their own home to study the textbook before they come to their next lesson. I feel very satisfied to hear this. I am always thinking about the best ways to encourage my students in learning how to speak English. I am always learning something new every day, and so are my students. It's a wonderful life.
2005 May 11 Wednesday
At least it's not snowing today. I woke up at about 5:00 and couldn't go back to sleep so, I went to work. At about 8:10, I left for the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). My first class of the new school year there will be today. After that was finished at 10:20, I drove over to Asahikawa University to attend a Korean Language Class that is being held there every Wednesday from 10:40 to 12:10. It is the continuation of a class that I took last year. After that was finished, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. I was feeling very sleepy by the end of the day, but I decided to continue editing the photos that I took during my 5 day road trip along the entire coastline of southern Hokkaido. Tomorrow, I don't have any business until the early afternoon so, I can sleep later than usual. I wish I didn't have to sleep. Think of how much I could learn and do if I was able to operate 24/7. Just like a computerized robot. It's a brave new world.
2005 May 10 Tuesday
What? Again? Heavy, wet snow on my van, having slid down the windshield like a jelly roll. Enough is enough! Can't you wait until November or December? My teaching day started at 9:00 with two classes at the university. After that was finished at 12:10, I went to the Western Super Market in Nagayama to buy some foodstuffs. Then is was back to my classroom for lunch and some TV news. Then, from 15:00 until 20:00, it was straight classes. After that, more research on the internet and some editing of the photos which I took during my 5 day road trip around southern Hokkaido. Tomorrow is the first class of this year for me at the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校). I will use the same lesson plan I use every time for the first lesson, and the 90 minute class will be over in no time. I'm looking forward to seeing some new faces.
2005 May 9 Monday
A bit rainy but not so cold. I got up early and did some work on my PC. Then, I went to my first class of the day at 13:30 at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会. There was a new member there today. Actually, I have known this man for about 12 years or more. I often see him when I go shopping at the Seikyo supermarket next door after 8:30 pm. Nice to see you again Mr. M! I told the students about my long 5 day drive through southern Hokkaido, and they told me about how they spent their GW. After that, it was back to my classroom for classes from 15:00 until 20:00. Then dinner time and more work on the PC.
2005 May 8 Sunday
Another cold and not so nice day weather wise. I spent most of the day doing research on the internet as well as editing some of the 340 photos that I took during my 5 day road trip along the entire coastline of southern Hokkaido. Also, I am reading some books about how to use the Macromedia Studio MX software that I recently purchased using the education discount. When I figure out how to use this software correctly, I will be able to offer eLEARNING for English right here on this website. It will take a while, but all I have is time anyway so stay tuned for the new look and feel of snowmanjapan.net. Tomorrow it is back to a regular work week. I hope it is warm and sunny like spring time should be.
Today's weather is
bizarre. In the morning, freezing rain and hail. Then in the late
afternoon, SNOW. Don't believe me? See the photo on the left.
I'm glad I was able to take my road trip along the entire coastline of southern
Hokkaido when I did. I had sunny weather every day. Nothing like
this stuff. I wonder when I can finally go cycling again. It's not
much fun when it is cold and windy. I will spend most of the day today
editing the 340 photos that I took during my road trip. I will post them
on this website as soon as possible.
Please check back again in the near future.
Thank you for visiting my website.
2005 May 6 Friday
A sunny but rather cold day. At 9:00 I had a 90 minute class at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing School of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Today's topic was Golden Week. I handed out a one page list of the roads I traveled and the towns and cities I went through then I explained, in English, about what I saw and what I did each day. Then, I asked the students to take out a sheet of notebook paper and write about how they spent their golden week. I allowed them the entire remainder of the class time to write it. Most of them did quite well with the project. After that was finished at 10:30, I came back to my classroom to eat lunch and clean the place up. Then, I had a private lesson from 13:30 until 14:30. The two ladies that come to this lesson every week are delightful. We always have a good time and they remember their lessons well. At 15:00 the rest of today's lessons started and I was finished at 20:00. I was feeling very sleepy towards the end of the last lesson so I didn't have enough energy to do anything constructive. Instead, I played around with some photographs that my sister, who lives in Seattle, sent me of her cat. You can see the results of my play time by clicking here. I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow?
2005 May 5 Thursday
I finished editing the travel log. You can read it by clicking here. Also, it's back to work tomorrow with my first class at 9:00 at the Hokkaido Prefecture Nursing School of Asahikawa 北海道立旭川高等看護学院. Then, a private lesson at 13:30 and then straight classes from 15:00 until 20:00. I have already edited the photos for the first day of the road trip and will continue to edit the rest during this weekend. I will post them in the Photo Gallery section of this website as soon as they are completed.
2005 May 4 Wednesday
Yeah, that was a nice road trip. Now I've got two days to clean up my van, edit the travel log and the 340 photos that I took along the way. Also, it's nice to sleep on a real futon for a change. Sleeping in the van is OK but not as comfortable as your regular "bed".
2005 April 29 Friday - May 3 Thursday
On the road in southern Hokkaido. ROAD TRIP!!!
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