Asahikawa American English Conversation School
for October 2009
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
始めました！ ニックネームは SnowmanJPN 見てね！
2009 October 25 Sunday thru October 31 Saturday.
Another
long week of classes and cold night time temperatures. Today is Halloween.
I don't have a Halloween Party at my classroom, but I do give everybody who
comes to my classroom a treat during the last week of October, leading up to
Halloween.
In the photo on the left, you can see me with just two of the beautiful young ladies who come to my classroom on a regular basis. The treats are in the plastic Jack-o-Lantern on the table. Just some simple hard candies of many flavors.
The girl on the right is wearing a Jack-o-Lantern Hat, which I found at Toys R Us, the other day. Believe it or not, the hat is big enough to fit over my entire head and make me look like an orange and black monster.
Many, if not most, of the English Conversation Classrooms in Japan, make it a point to have an annual Halloween Party. They like to put photos of it on the top page of their website. I choose not to. I realize that the students will bring their friends and that their friends might also become students at my classroom in the future, but I'm not interested in that type of marketing.
The purpose of my classroom is NOT to have many fun "Events" throughout the year, but to have an enjoyable and informative lesson, each and every time, when the many students come to my classroom. I love learning new things everyday, and so do my students.
Instead of a Halloween Party, I have an ESSAY about the history of Halloween, and how Halloween is celebrated today, with a PODCAST of me reading the text. This is for adults. You can read the essay, while listening to me read it out loud, by clicking here.
Also, I have a fun Fun Musical Animation of the song, MONSTER MASH, that I made for children. You can watch and listen to it by clicking here.
Both of them are available at any time, and can be enjoyed right within the comfort of your own home.
ENJOY!
2009 October 18 Sunday thru October 24 Saturday.
Influenza
Week! About one half of my students cancelled their lessons this week
because of bad colds and/or influenza. I myself cancelled my first two
lessons on Monday. First was the Chestnut Tree Kindergarten starting at
10:00 and the second was the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会 which usually starts at 13:00.
I was somewhat ready to start lessons at my classroom from 15:00 on Monday, but only 3 people showed up all day.
I myself still wasn't in tip top shape when I went to Asahikawa University on Tuesday morning for 2 classes with the first year students. In fact, because of my practicing the guitar all last week to get ready for my big gig on Saturday, I didn't have time to make Lesson 6 for my eLearning website.
What to do???
No problem. Tuesday became a Review Day for lessons 1 thru 5, with computer quizzes only. For those students who have missed classes in the past, I gave them full attendance credit for the classes they missed, if they also did the paper quiz for each lesson that they haven't done yet. The students were very happy with my proposal.
However, I need to make lesson 6 for next Tuesday and I may have to stay up late a few nights to get it finished.
On Saturday, the weather was so nice, I just had to get out on the road along with my new Canon EOS X3 DSLR, and take as many photos as I could, in order to figure out how to use the camera correctly. I took a total of 284 photos, and only a few of them came out really well.
We drove all the way from Asahikawa to the Mt. Tokachi Observation Area, and I took photos at various points all along the way. Probably the worst photos I took were from the Tokachi Observation Area. The exposure settings were all wrong. Everything came out too pale. I have a lot to learn about using my new camera. But for now, I will show you one of the better photos I took today, in the upper left corner of today's blog. This photo was taken in a small park in Kita Saito across the street from the Science Pavilion, SaiPal. I have done nothing at all to the photo except to reduce its size for this web page. Not even any adjustment for brightness or contrast. The original photo was 4.32 MB in size, so I edited it in Fireworks to bring the size down to 1.2 MB and 660 X 440 pixels. I think it really captures the feeling of this season. You can see some more of the best photos that I took today on my FLICKR PHOTOSTREAM by clicking here.
Well anyway, I gotta get back to work on Lesson 6 for my Internet Classroom.
2009 October 17 Saturday.
Oktober
Fest Live was a big success. Thank you to all of the people who came to
see Liberty, The Radiators and me perform live music. All in all, about 50
people showed up for the the 3 hour event. To be honest, most of the people
who came, were my students or former students. I made sure that all of
them knew about this event by telling them in person, or sending them a letter
in the mail, or sending them an email. The webmaster of the
LiBERTY
website, told me that he had a big increase in unique visitors coming to look at
his website. Most of them came there via this website. After all, I
did study Marketing at Washington State University. I guess I really did
learn something in college.
My wife told me that my guitar playing sounded excellent. It's the same guitar playing that I do at home, but MokuZouKan has wonderful acoustics, and that makes a big difference in the way music sounds.
I hope I have the opportunity to play here again some day. It's the perfect venue for live music. If you could not come to the show, you can still see Music Videos of all the songs I played by Clicking Here.
It's hard to believe that there was some talk of tearing this building down some years ago, when the Forestry Management Agency 営林局 moved out of the big building next door. Tear this building down??? What a ridiculous idea!!! I wonder who had that brain fart.
2009 October 13 Tuesday thru October 16 Friday.
Cold
and Rainy is the name of this season. In Germany, they are having a big
beer bash called Oktoberfest. I wish I could be there, because I just love
German Beer.
Here in Asahikawa, we are going to have our own Oktober Fest Live Music Concert at MokuZouKan 木造館. MokuZouKan is right across the street from the Taisetsu Crystal Hall and the Taisetsu Arena here in Kagura. It is a beautiful concert hall with room for about 100 people to sit an enjoy live music.
Three bands will be playing there on Saturday October 17, starting at 18:00. The three bands are, LiBERTY, The Radiators, and me, Snowman Japan. LiBERTY and the The Radiators play the Groups Sounds Music of the late 1960s, for example THE VENTURES type of guitar sounds. I will be playing 14 of my favorite (there are a lot more than that) Gordon Lightfoot songs, by myself as a solo act, on acoustic guitar.
If you have time, please come and enjoy the music. The concert is absolutely FREE. Click Here For More Details.
Doors open at 17:30, so get there a bit early and be sure to get a seat.
Hope to see you all there.
2009 October 5 Monday thru October 12 Monday.
Another
long week of teaching lessons, including public, group and private. Again
on Tuesday, I used my new eLearning website with the students at Asahikawa
University. This time, we did Lesson 4 about the tallest waterfalls in the
world. Again, as before, the students told me how much they enjoy using
this website, and that they feel as if they are improving their English
abilities, with every lesson. The other professor who teaches these same
students on Wednesdays, also mentioned to me about how much the students like
using my new website. I am so glad to hear that. I have been
planning this website since about 5 years ago. At that time I knew exactly
what I wanted to make, but I had no clue as to how to make it. After
buying new software and many books about creating eLearning websites, I was
finally able to put it all together, and launch Lesson 1 on
www.snowmanjapan.com about 5 weeks ago. Since then, I
have been adding a new lesson to the website every week. It takes a lot of
time, but it is well worth it, considering the rave reviews I have received so
far.
Another thing that I have been considering for about 18 months, is the purchase of my first SLR Digital Camera, that has the capabilities to take really professional quality photographs. At first, I was considering an Olympus SLR digital Camera, because I have a very old Olympus OM1 film camera. I thought that the lenses I already have, might fit onto the new digital camera, but they don't. So I put off buying my first SLR digital camera, until I could do more market research into the subject.
Finally about 4 weeks ago, when I went to The Chestnut Tree Kindergarten くりの木幼稚園, I noticed that there were a lot of really professional looking photographs of the kids on the walls. So, I asked the owner if he had bought a new camera recently. He said; "Yes, I did". I asked him what brand and model he had purchased. He replied; "The Canon Kiss X2". I also asked him if that was the newest model, and he said that it was the model just before the newest model.
Having seen the excellent photos, renewed my interest in getting my first SLR digital camera, so I started looking around on the internet. I found the newest Canon Kiss model, the X3, and really liked what I read about it.
About 3 days ago, I decided to walk on over to Camera Kitamura, which is right next to my classroom, and inquire about the price of the new camera, and how much money I could get for selling some of my old cameras. After a few minutes of negotiations, I told the store clerk that I could by this camera on the internet for just under 80,000 yen. Even with selling my old cameras, the best price they could offer me was 86,000 yen.
I asked if they could sell it to me for 80,000 yen, and they said "No". Good job bone head, you just lost a sale. That person must have an MBA. Master of Business Administration really means, "Mental Block Always".
I went back home after that negotiation, and bought it from Amazon co jp, using my wife's affiliate link, to make the purchase. In the age of the World Wide Web, businesses selling identical products need to understand that the customer will buy from the place that offers the lowest price. Plain and simple. Small profit margins require a Big volume of sales. Just ask any grocery store owner.
2009 October 1 Thursday thru October 4 Sunday.
On
Saturday evening, I had the chance to listen to some rather unusual music.
In the photo on the left, you can see Three Giant Jazz Trio. On the piano,
渋谷 毅, born in Tokyo 1939. On the saxophone, 峰 厚介, born in Tokyo 1944, and
on the DIDGERIDOO, 荒井 ABO 誠 who moved to 北海道当別町 in April of 2007. If you
are wondering what a DIDGERIDOO is, it is a musical instrument invented by the
Aboriginal Peoples of Australia.
Click here, to read more about it on Wikipedia.
The sound of the didgeridoo is rather difficult to describe, other than to say that it is a low drone type of sound that is very mesmerizing. The very small camera that I brought with me to this event, also has a microphone sound recording function, so I made a short recording of the didgeridoo, which I can share with my readers. Click here to open the audio file in a player of your choice.
The musical performance lasted from 19:00 until 21:30, with a very long intermission, in between the first and second sets.
The location of the performance was at JAZZ POINT COFFEE SHOP ABERU, which is located between 4 Jodori and 5 Jodori at 20 Chome.
The building itself is a completely remodeled two floor apartment building, that used to have either 4 or 8 apartments in it. The interior is very nicely done with different types of recycled wood, and it has a very warm and pleasant feeling.
For more information, give them a call at ジャズ喫茶アベル ０１６６−３２−２９７７ あさひかわ新聞の記事はこちらへ
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