Asahikawa American English Conversation School
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
2008 May 10 Saturday and May 11 Sunday.
Saturday
morning started at 10:30, when I had a one hour private lesson with an 8 year
old girl, who comes to my classroom every week at this time. Last
week she didn't come, because she and her family went down to Tokyo and Yokohama
during Golden Week, to see some relatives and do some sightseeing.
During that time, she visited Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea, along with
some other amusement parks in Yokohama. This week when she came to
class, she told me all about her adventures IN ENGLISH! She even
drew some illustrations of what she had seen and experienced during her trip.
This very intelligent little lady, is one of the very few children who come to
my classroom, who actually tries to use English as her first language, when she
is with me. We almost never speak Japanese to each other.
Amazing. After that lesson was finished, I made
some really hot and spicy Korean Ramen for lunch. It is my own very
simple recipe and I would never think of making it for someone else, but I must
admit that I really do love to eat stuff, made with lots of hot red peppers.
I'm not sure why that is, but it IS. I was hoping that I could drive
out to ShiBiNai and visit with Charles Hamel and family, but Charlie was busy
helping one of his neighbors, set up a new restaurant. A very
neighborly and noble thing to do. Maybe I should have gone out there
to help them, but I was more interested in playing the guitar, again today.
Since about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I have been getting back into an artist from Great
Britain, whom I have been listening to since about 1984. When I
lived in the USA, I had many of his albums on cassette tapes, and I would spend
countless hours listening to his music and playing along on both electric and
acoustic guitars. Again this Saturday, I used You Tube to find the
songs I love, and my acoustic guitar to play along with the rhythms and
melodies. The British Musician to whom I am referring is
Al Stewart. You can see a You
Tube video of him and his band, performing his original song, The Last Days of
the Century, by clicking on his name above. Later on, I also played
around on the Alto Recorder, and just for fun. Sunday was Mothers'
Day. Of which I had completely forgotten about until about 10:30 am
on Sunday Morning, when Ikuko reminded me of it. My mother and
father are both deceased now, and the only bloodline family member whom is still
slaving away on prison planet, is my skinny little sister, who lives in Seattle.
She is not a mother, so I didn't send her a greeting card. We were
mainly concerned with Ikuko's mother, who is still active and healthy, and
living not too far away from us. That's why Ikuko remembered that today is
Mothers' Day, and I didn't. To make up for my forgetfulness, I have thrown
together a haphazard digital greeting card, to post in this blog.
You can see my less than diligent results, above/left.
Tomorrow, I get to play my guitar at the Young Buds Kindergarten めばえ幼稚園.
I am well prepared, and looking forward to it. I think we will start
with the ABC SONG, and work our way UP from there.
2008 May 5 Monday thru May 9 Friday.
Monday
and Tuesday were both National Holidays so I had no classes to teach.
The weather during this entire five days can be characterized as cold, wet and
windy. I even saw a few snowflakes from time to time.
Well, that's the north country for ya. Because of the consecutive
holidays, I was able to make a new set of Question and Answer Cards, that are
designed to be used together with my original textbook for elementary school
students. After the students have memorized all 12 pages of the
textbook, the cards are used to test the learning comprehension of the students,
by presenting the entire contents of the textbook, one question at a time, in
completely random order. This method, really puts the frosting on
the cake. It took me many hours over several days to finish all of
the cards, but now that I have them, I can use them over and over again for many
years to come. Invest Time in Yourself. Turn off
the boob tube. Watch You Tube instead. Starting
again Wednesday, it was back to a full schedule of classes throughout each day.
And it continued to be cold and windy, especially at night.
That's usually when Ikuko and I go for our walks. Not this week.
It will get warmer soon, but my snow tires will stay attached until the third
week in May. I have seen it snow here before, as late as May
18. The hot times are still a month or so away.
When that season comes, we can really get down and go for some long drives, with
overnight camp outs, and MEGA Star Gazing. Bring on the
Summer. Bring on the Night.
2008 May 2 Friday thru May 4 Sunday.
The
last day of classes before Golden Week. On Friday, I went to the
Dokan Nursing School from 9:00 until 10:30, for a 90 minute class with one half
of the second year students. Today I split the class into 3 groups
of 6 students each, and one group of 2 students plus me. We did page one
of my original textbook called Q&A. It was a most interesting and
enjoyable lesson for the students, and myself. After that, I had straight
classes from 15:00 until 20:30 at my classroom. On Saturday, I had
originally planned to drive down to Otaru, and spend the night at the 道の駅 (MaxValue
24/7) so that I could go to
Otaru Beer and see the
Palosiks do three live stage shows.
However, I got an email from a former student inviting me to a BBQ party at
Kagura Oka Park on that same day, so I went to the BBQ party instead.
When I got to Kagura Oka Park, I was rather surprised to see that almost all of
the cherry blossoms, had already fallen to the ground. A bit early
in the season for that, in Asahikawa. Nonetheless, there were many
other people gathered in the park for exactly the same reason. While
I was at the BBQ party, I was introduced to a guy who appeared to be about 25 or
26 years old. When I said; "Hello, nice to meet you." He
didn't say anything in response. In fact, he didn't even look up at me.
I have seen this behavior in some very young children before, but almost never
in "ADULTS". Even as the BBQ Party continued for the next 2 hours, this
guy said almost nothing, to anyone, the whole time. He reminded me
of my skinny little sister, who is very self-conscious (immature), and is unable
to look people in the eyes, when talking to them. In the case of my
little sister, this is mainly because she was pampered 甘やかしてる and over-protected
過保護 all of her life. Physically she got older, but mentally, she
never grew up. She probably never will, because she doesn't have to
until,.... it becomes a tree to weak to stand. See photo
above/left for details. Anyway, it was a bit windy, but it didn't
rain at Saturday's BBQ Party. I ate a lot of meat and drank a lot of
beer, as I usually do at BBQ parties. Not a very well balanced diet
for the day, but rather enjoyable anyway. Until the next day on
Sunday. On Sunday, Ikuko and I were planning to drive down to
Otaru and spend the night, as per my previous plan for Saturday, but I had a
huge stomach ache all day long, and certainly did not feel like driving, even
for a short distance. Trip Cancelled. Maybe some other
time.
2008 May 1 Thursday.
The
first day of May. Also known as
May Day. I don't know the details
of this annual event, but it seems to have something to do with labor unions.
Also, it is the mid-point between the Spring Equinox 春分の日 and the Summer
Solstice 夏至. This has much more meaning for me, that anything
having to do with some type of International Labor Movement, or whatever.
Anyway, I didn't have any classes today until 15:00, so I used my free time to
do many things around my classroom and living room. One of the
things that I did was to make a new signboard 看板 for the windows of my
classroom. Big signboards can be very expensive.
But, by using a PC, an ink jet printer and a laminating machine, the
small business owner, can save a ton of money. Not only that, but you
can get the exact results that you want, by Doing It Yourself (DIY).
I am very particular about the colors and designs that I use to advertise my
little old classroom. The laminated signs that I had taped to my
classroom windows for about 4 years, have become color faded and hard to read.
Therefore, I decided to make completely new ones, using the same colors and
design as before. This is not difficult, but it does take time.
So, while I was printing out the new sheets of paper on my ink jet printer, I
was also cleaning up the classroom and living room areas. I often
use a wet rag to wipe the surfaces of tables, chairs and other appliances.
Today, while using one wet rag for clean up, I absent mindedly left another rag in the
bathroom sink, with the cold water running at full blast.
I was out in the other room, putting a sheet of paper into the printer, so as to
print out the next letter of my signboard. About one minute
later when I went back into the bathroom area to get the wet rag, I discovered
to my horror, that the rag had floated up into the overflow prevention drain
holes near the top of the bathroom sink, thus blocking them. As a
result, a copious amount of cold water was running out over the top of the sink
and down onto the floor below, and in all directions. Oh my Gawwwwwwd!
I immediately turned off the water and unplugged the drain.
I grabbed a mop and started to mop up the excess water. It was
more than my little mop could handle. About 2 minutes later,
someone was ringing my classroom doorbell. It was one of the office
staff members from the first floor. He said that water was
leaking from my room down into a corner of the kitchen, of the restaurant which
is directly below me. Aw Xit!!! This time I have
screwed up BIG TIME. I told the man that I was taking care of
the problem, and went back to using my mop. Suddenly, it dawned on
me that my big WET/DRY Vacuum Cleaner, would do a much better and much quicker job of
sucking up the excess water. So, I got it out and went to work.
In about 2 minutes, I had all of the excess water sucked up off of the floor,
ensuring that no more would leak down to the kitchen below me. At
that point, I walked downstairs and in through the back door of the soba noodle
restaurant to inquire about any water damage that I may have caused by my
absent-minded behavior. The boss of this restaurant and I,
both recognize each other immediately, by our physical appearances, so he was
not too surprised to see me inside his kitchen. I anxiously asked
him; "Did a lot of water leak down from my room into this kitchen?"
He replied; "No, not much." Thank Gawd, I thought to myself.
Then I asked; "Did any water leak into the dining room area?"
He answered; "No, none at all." I felt very
relived to hear that. I make mistakes, from time to time, as
all humanoids do, but I always learn something new from any mistake.
Don't DO IT that way again, IS the basic message, from any mistake.
Lesson Learned, time to move on. Golden Week, is just around
the corner. Time to kick back and relax. Unless,...
2008 April 21 Monday thru April 30 Wednesday.
The
third week of back to school, and the end of the first month of spring.
April is an interesting month. One day it will be very warm, say up
to about 17 degrees Celsius and then on that very same day, during the
nighttime, it can get down to -5 degrees Celsius. That is a rather
large change in temperature for just 24 hours, don't you think? Not
only that, but April has its fair share of cold and rainy days as well.
If you live closer to the mountains, you may even see some snowflakes falling
out of the sky, from time to time. For some folks, April 29 which is
now known as ShoWa No Hi 昭和の日, is the start of Golden Week for 2008.
In fact, on Wednesday April 30, I was absent minded enough to drive all the way
out to the Kosei Nursing School, in order to teach my English class to the first
year students, only to discover that there was almost nobody at the school.
When I got to the teacher's lounge, and opened my folder, I discovered that
today and tomorrow and every day after that until May 7, is an extended holiday
for all of the students. Imagine the surprise of the very few staff
members who were at the school on that day, when they saw me walking around in
the building. I was surprised too, but I shouldn't have been.
After I got back home and looked at my own personal schedule book again, I was
amazed to discover that I had NOT written down that a KNS class was scheduled
for April 30! Even though I should have double checked my schedule
book the night before, for some reason I did not, and had ASSUMED that I did
indeed have a class on April 30. You know what they say about the
word ASSUME; "It makes an ASS out of yoU and ME." Yeah,
it sure did that today. Jeez, what an idiot I was.
However, being located all the way out in East Asahikawa 東旭川, and not far from
the Asahiyama Zoo 旭山動物園, I took advantage of my huge blunder and drove over to
take a look at the zoo, from outside of the gate. Apparently, they
open the zoo at 9:00, because there were a lot of guardsmen standing around
directing traffic, as people were lining up to get into the zoo. A
lot of tour buses were also heading for the East Gate of the zoo. Being
rather cold and overcast today, is not the best day to visit the zoo, but if you
have come all the way from Taiwan or Korea to Asahikawa, it's a good day,
because it is not raining. Say hello to all of the friendly animals
for me. I'll come back again, on another day.
2008 April 14 Monday thru April 20 Sunday.
The second week of back to school. Another good
year is on the horizon with fresh faces, and motivated young people, starting off
on their life adventures. I too, have been trying to make a
comeback, of sorts. When the cycling roads become completely free of snow
and ice, it is WALKING TIME. Any time of the day or night.
The so called Metabolic Syndrome, is just a slowing down of a human being's
metabolism. And it is not just human beings. Horses and other
large animals also develop メタボ. When I tried to do some
research into the causes and remedies for Metabolic Syndrome on the World Wide
Web, I was NOT able to find any consensual conclusion, as to the reason why
some animals get obese, and others don't. I have thought about this
topic for many years, and the only thing I can say with certainty, is that in
modern society people tend to become sedentary. They sit at a desk
or table, and use their mouths for speaking and their hands for gestures, to do their daily work,
and get a paycheck. People who use their physical bodies, to do
their jobs, from day to day, are much less likely to develop
metabolic syndrome. I am a professional language teacher, and I
spend most of my working hours sitting in a chair, or standing in the front of a
classroom talking. I do not get anywhere near enough physical
exercise, especially during the winter months when there is a lot of snow
everywhere. Starting last Sunday, I pledged to myself, to go
for a walk 5 or 6 times a week, for between 30 minutes and 120 minutes, each and
every time. I must do this in order to speed up my metabolism
again, so that I can lose weight, and get back to my normal body size of a 34 to
36 inch waist. I have many pairs of Levi 501 Jeans sitting in boxes,
just waiting to be worn again. To increase the effectiveness
of my time spent walking, I also wear weights on my wrists of between 1.0
kilograms and 2.0 kilograms. In this way, by moving my arms around
while I am walking, I burn more calories and strengthen my upper body muscles at
the same time. The only time I have to go for these long walks on
weekdays, is after all of my classes for the day are finished, which is at 20:00
or sometimes 21:30. Nonetheless, I need to do this on a consistent
basis, or I will obtain no useful results for my health. I mean,
walking is such a natural and easy exercise to perform, I have no excuses for
not doing it. WALK ON! On Sunday, I drove out to
Shibinai to visit with Charles Hamel and Family. The weather was
warm and sunny, with a high temp. of about 20 degrees C. We went for
a short bicycle ride to a river bank of the nearby Chubetsu River and enjoyed
the fresh air. I met more of his new neighbors also. A lot of very
nice people live in Shibinai. This is country living, away from the
big city. I myself would enjoy living there, but I couldn't get enough
students to come to my classroom if I did. Oh well, at least I can
go out and visit the place from time to time.
2008 April 7 Monday thru April 13 Sunday.
It
is the START of the New School Year, over here in Japan. Everybody
is busy with this and that, getting ready to congregate at the schools, and
await summer vacation. On Tuesday morning, I drove out to
Asahikawa University to conduct a class with some of the new freshman students.
Using the computer lab again this year, I am accustomed to the random manner of
interactivity with the students. A lot of them will be surfing the
internet, and not following my lesson plan for the day. Others will
complete the planned lesson for that day, and make progress.
Different strokes for different folks. On Wednesday, I went out to
the Kosei Nursing School (JA北海道厚生連旭川厚生看護専門学校）, for a class of about 40 new
freshman students. This class is always held in a rather large
classroom, will all students sitting in their own little desk-chair combination
units. Therefore, it is very easy to move the seats around and
form groups for pair work, and other such activities. On Friday, I went
out to the Dokan Nursing School 北海道立旭川高等看護学院 for a class with one half of the
2nd year students. There are more boys in the class this year.
No problem there, in fact sometimes it makes things more lively and interesting.
I had a private lesson on Saturday morning, and after that it was time to play
the folk guitar for a few hours. Something I haven't done for a
while. On Sunday evening, I was able to take a nice long walk along
the cycling roads that run along the Biei and Chubetsu Rivers. No
snow on the trail anymore. I was smart enough to wear running shoes,
but I refused to wear socks. My feet stayed toasty warm, and I
walked around for more than 90 minutes. During that time, I saw
light in the sky, grow suddenly brilliant white and then fade back into dull
white, as it moved along it's path. My first thought was that it is
another "spook light", but it was too small and to far away to be confirmed as
that. My second thought was that it is a man-made satellite that had
somehow caught a momentary direct hit of sunlight, and merely reflected it back
to earth. Exactly how this would work at night, I am not sure.
But I did see, the momentary glowing up to brilliance, of a celestial object,
again tonight. First one for the 2008 walking year.
2008 April 2 Wednesday thru April 6 Sunday.
Welcome
to The Learning Curve. If you are a non-native speaker of the
English Language, and you are reading this blog, with a full understanding of
what I am talking about, you already KNOW what The Learning Curve is all about.
The reason I bring this topic up TODAY, is because one of my most enthusiastic
students, a middle-aged person who attends my classroom 3 times a week, told me
something that was profoundly interesting for me. This particular
student has only been attending my classroom for one year. Before he came
to my classroom, he had attended a big name English Conversation School, in the city of
Kitami for two years. At that time, he wanted to study English as a
hobby, because he was living alone, and had quite a bit of free time on his
hands. After 2 years of living and working in Kitami, he was
transferred to Asahikawa, and he immediately starting looking for a new English
Conversation School in Asahikawa
旭川英会話スクール. It didn't take him
long to find this website for my little ole school, right here on the WORLD WIDE
WEB. AKA the internet. He called here and
made an appointment for a free trial lesson 無料見学. After that lesson,
he immediately decided to sign up as a new member of this classroom, and has
been coming here almost every week, and on average about 2 or 3 times a week,
for a total of one year now. At today's lesson he told me that
he is so happy, that he can now speak English in a fluent and accurate manner,
and he felt so good about IT, that he couldn't stop talking about IT.
I then explained to him in English, about the concept of a learning curve.
Please look at the graphic, above/left. When a person, any
person, first tries to learn something completely new, they START on the
LEARNING CURVE. At first, they must study very hard, and they do not
make much progress. But if they keep on trying for a long enough
time, they will reach phase one. At this point, they can feel
that they have learned something new, but it is still not very useful in their
daily lives. If the student continues to study, they will make
it to phase two and then phase three and up to phase four, where they notice a
significant increase of their knowledge about the new study, but IT is still NOT
QUITE ENOUGH to become very useful in their daily lives. At
this point, many people will have spent about 2 or 3 years studying this new
knowledge and they all have a decision to make. Should they
continue their study, or should they quit? Unfortunately, a
lot of people get frustrated with their own slow progress, and give up at this
point. However, those students who keep on trying to learn
more about their new knowledge, and DO NOT GIVE UP, have a very big surprise
waiting for them, just around the corner. After phase four,
the amount of time spent studying begins to yield much bigger results in total
learning achieved. This is the point where critical mass has
been achieved, and the return to the student for their time spent studying,
INCREASES EXPONENTIALLY. In other words, their total
understanding of the knowledge at hand becomes greater and faster with each step
they take towards that knowledge. The student finally has
enough pieces of the puzzle, to be able to SEE the BIGGER PICTURE of that
knowledge base. This is true for any type of LEARNING
(knowledge acquisition). It is a fundamental LAW of the COSMOS.
IT never changes. IT just IS. I KNOW FOR A FACT that
this is true, because I have had many personal experiences, in my own 50
something years of humanoid EXISTENCE on this EARTH, that have taught me the
true meaning of learning. For example, learning how to play
the guitar, the piano, the bass guitar, the Japanese Language, the teaching of
languages, the learning of new languages, and the list goes on and on.
Don't be one of those people who give up when the going gets tough 三日坊主.
Hang in there and tough it out. There
are millions of sad stories about people who did their best, and then STOPPED
ONLY 3 METERS AWAY FROM THE GOLD MINE. Do not allow
yourself to become one of them. ROCK ON!
2008 April 1 Tuesday.
It
may be
April Fools' Day, but I am not fooling when I
say that Eastern Hokkaido got socked in with about 70 cm of wind blown snow
during this long cold day. What a nasty surprise for the people
living in that part of this beautiful island. In Asahikawa, it
was cold, but calm. Very few natural disasters ever happen in the
Kamikawa Basin 上川盆地. Another item of good news is that, I got
an email from my skinny little sister telling me that she had received the
birthday card that I had sent her about 10 days ago. That made
me feel better, after wondering out loud in yesterday's blog, about whether or
not I had actually sent it, or not. Well, Thank Gawd I don't have
Alzheimer's Disease!!! Anyway, getting back to today, I had
the privilege and opportunity, to attend a Teachers' Meeting of the
Kosei
Nursing School, that was held at the Asahikawa Grand Hotel, starting at 18:00.
As with just about every year at the general meeting, the staff and other
teacher's commented on how the learning level of the students seems to be going
down, year by year. Personally, I feel that a big reason for this is
that most young people these days, spend a lot of time communicating by mobile
phones, and less time communicating face to face with other people.
They spend a lot of time pushing buttons, not just on their mobile phones, but
also on PC or TV games as well. As a result, they have no real
self confidence when dealing with real people, face to face. Even
though these students can memorize most of the complicated facts presented to
them during their three years of nursing school, most of them have trouble
connecting all of the facts together into a whole, so that they can see the BIG
PICTURE. And believe me, it is not just this school.
Far from it. It is a general trend in society at large, and not just
Japanese society either. In general, I call it a DUMBING DOWN
of society. Most likely, it all started way back in the early
1950s when the first black and white television sets, became freely available to
the general public. Since that time, people have been spending less
and less time interacting with other people, and more and more time interacting
with electronic devices, of many kinds. The internet included.
Anyway, after the general business meeting was finished at about 17:00, we all
moved over to the room next door for a dinner party that lasted for about 90
minutes until 20:30. At the end of the dinner party, one of
the other teachers, a retired physics professor, invited me to walk into town
with him, and go to a Karaoke Bar. I said; "Yes!", and so we went
there. I haven't been out to sing Karaoke in about,...
let's see when was that last time,.....???? Oh, yeah!
It was exactly one year ago and with this same professor, last year at this same
time. Wow, I am really becoming a stay at home type of guy.
Anyway, we both had a great time singing lots of songs in Japanese until about
3:00 in the morning hours. I used to do this type of thing a
lot, but not much any more. Sometimes it is a good thing to do
something totally different, and break you usual daily routine.
Sometimes.
2008 March 31 Monday.
Brrrrrr.....
It was cold today. Not just after the sun went down, but even
during the day when it was mostly clear and sunny. It might say that
spring is here on the calendar, but the folks with boots on the ground, know
different. Today is my younger sister's birthday. Maybe I
should say little sister, instead. She is younger that me, but she is the
same age as my lovely wife, which is not all that young when viewed from the
standpoint of a high school student. Yeah, little is a better
word because she is as skinny as a toothpick, without its wrapper.
I thought that I sent her a Happy Birthday Post Card, like the one shown in the
photo above/left, on or about March 20, but I haven't received any email from
her yet, telling me that she received the card. She always
sends an email when she gets my card each and every year.
Unless,..... I forgot to send the card by snail mail, and she
never got it. I don't know for sure. Did I really
send the card, or was it just a brain fart, I had during a dream.
Maybe I have Alzheimer's Disease like Ronald Reagan had. Gawd, I
hope not. Oh! That reminds me of an American Joke that I
heard on the internet a few years ago. It goes something like this:
An elderly person was feeling bad, so they went to see
their doctor. The patient said to the doctor: "Doc, I'm not
feeling so well. Could you please give me a complete physical exam
and see if there is anything wrong with me?" The doctor said; "Sure,
I'd be happy to. Please come with me into the examination room."
In the examination room all manner of tests were done, and sent to the hospital
laboratory for further analysis. About one week later, the
patient came back to see the doctor and asked about the test results.
The doctor said to the patient; "I have some bad news. You
have cancer." The patient cried out; "Oh my Gawd!
How long do I have to live?" The doctor replied; "Only
about one more year. But, that is not all. You also have
Alzheimer's Disease." The patient again replied in a
worried voice; "Did you say that I have Alzheimer's Disease???"
The doctor answered; "Yes, that's right." The patient
suddenly became silent and looked down at the floor. Then, he
quickly looked up at the doctor with a big smile on his face and said;
"Well, Thank Gawd I don't have cancer!!!" Have you ever
heard this joke before, and do you understood why it might make an optimistic
person laugh? I have tried telling this joke to almost all of my
adult students from time to time, and I always get the same reaction.
Glassy-eyed silence. They don't get the punch line 落ち.
Japanese humor and American humor are worlds apart, but they are both equally
amusing, in and of their own right. For those of you out
there, who are reading this blog, let me try and summarize why this joke is
funny to the Average American English Speaking Male. When the
guy goes into the doctor's office for the second time one week after his
examination. The doctor FIRST tells the patient that he has cancer.
Then, a few moments later, the doctor tells the patient SECONDLY, that he has
ALZHEIMER'S disease. When the patient hears this, he initially feels
depressed, and looks at the floor. However, after a momentary
self-reflection, the patient realizes that he is lucky to NOT HAVE cancer.
You see, the funny part is, that the patient HAS ALREADY FORGOTTEN that the
doctor told him less than one minute ago, that the patient had cancer AND
Alzheimer's disease. That IS the punch line. Enough talk
about THAT. Words have meaning, thoughts are things. MAGNETIZE
your THOUGHTS in a POSITIVE manner at all times. All the while,
noticing the absurdities and contradictions, that we all encounter in our daily
lives. Laugh as much as possible. IT IS the BEST
MEDICINE.
2008 March 30 Sunday.
Oh
what a beautiful sunny day. By that I mean, the sky was so clear that I
could vividly see the Taisetsu Mountain Range from my balcony window.
On days like this, a drive towards the mountains is a must, if I have the time.
And today, I had all the time in the world. Just a few minutes after
12:00 noon, I got a telephone call from Charles Hamel asking me if I had enough
time to drive over to Shibinai and visit for a while. Of course I
did, and I arrived there at about 14:15. Even though they do not yet
have a telephone line nor internet service, they have just about everything else
they need to live comfortably at their new home, thanks to all of the nice
people who live nearby. Their kids were outside, playing with the
neighbor's kids and having a wonderful time. We adults sat around
the kitchen table talking about various things for about 40 minutes or so when I
finally said; "Hey Charlie. We should all take a drive up towards
the mountains, because the weather today is absolutely perfect for just such a
drive." Charlie agreed and told me that his children had never seen
snow before they came to Hokkaido. Even though there is still some
snow on the ground around their house, as you can see from the photo above/left,
the really deep snow can only be seen near the base of the mountains during this
time of year. So, we all hopped into my Road Meister Toyota
Noah mini van, and drove straight towards the mountains, passing by Chubetsu Dam
and Chubetsu Lake along the way. First destination was Tenninkyo Hot
Springs 天人峡温泉. We went as far as the road would take us and
ended up at the parking lot of the Hotel
天人閣. We all got out and looked around as much as we could, but
the hiking trail to the waterfalls was still full of snow and not passable.
Next, we drove back down the hill until we got to the "Y" in the road that leads
up to the Asahidake Hot Springs
旭岳温泉. We turned right and drove back up the hill until we got to
the ropeway at Asahidake, but we didn't get out of the car there. We just drove
slowly around the area, enjoying the beautiful sights. After that,
we drove back down the hill and on into Shibinai, with plenty of daylight left.
On the way up to the mountains, we stopped along the road where there is a clear
view of Lake Chubetsu, and the kids had some fun walking around on the top
of the deep snow, and even making and throwing some snowballs, for the first
time in their lives. Yeah, it's cold isn't it. The Hamel
Family members were all smart enough to wear long rubber boots, but I was crazy
as usual wearing only sandals without socks. I did not climb around
on the snow, for obvious reasons. Even so, the time I did
spend out of the car walking around, was a bit cold for my feet. It
will be getting warmer day by day from now on so, I won't be wearing any socks
or shoes for many months. Simple is best.
2008 March 28 Friday and March 29 Saturday.
Beautiful
sunny weather for the most part. On Saturday after a private lesson
in the late morning, and a lunch of Natto and brown rice 納豆と玄米 in the early
afternoon, I found myself to be very sleepy. I had originally
planned to take a drive out to Shibinai to see how
Charles Hamel and Family were getting along in
their new home. Unfortunately, I was too sleepy to drive, so I laid
down at about 15:00 to take a nap. When I woke up, it was
already 19:30. Not only would I not be driving out to Shibinai, but
I was also an hour late for a Jazz Concert at the Taisetsu Crystal Hall.
Yikes! I got dressed quickly and walked on over to the concert
hall. I got there at 20:00, and it was too late to buy a
ticket, so I sat in the lobby and watched the stage on a TV screen.
I couldn't hear the music all that well, but it was better than nothing.
The good news is that I got there in time to listen to the segment where one of
my students, who plays the saxophone, was performing. This was the
main reason I wanted to go to this concert in the first place. The
almost 3 hours long concert was called
STEP TO ASIA Creative Concert and had at least
four separate stages consisting of professional, semi-professional and amateur
musicians. Overall, it sounded very nice. I
just wish I hadn't slept in, and missed the first 90 minutes of the show.
2008 March 27 Thursday.
Another
milestone in the continuing story of Snowman Bei Kaiwa. This young
gentleman with me in the photograph above/left, has been coming to my classroom
off and on, since he was 8 years old. You can see what he looked
like at that time in the smaller photo in the lower right corner.
Today was his last lesson at my school. On April 1, he will be
flying to Australia and start attending an English speaking high school there.
He is planning to spend 3 years in Australia and graduate from high school
there. His main goal in life is to become a professional golfer, and
I know for sure that he can do it. He first started playing
golf when he and his family lived in Houston Texas for about 6 months, when he
was just 7 years old. He is now 15 years old and has been practicing
golf every day of his life since he was 7. That's what it takes to
become a professional, in any field. Unswerving dedication and
constant practice of the BASICS. Look at Tiger Woods or ICHIRO, and
you can see what I mean. Remember this young man's face, because you
will be seeing him on TV in professional golf tournaments, in the not too
distant future. He will probably be on the same tour with Greg
Norman of Australia, some day. His real name is Nanase, but I
just call him Tiger Yoshida. Have a safe flight to the big
down under, and come back and see me again during your Christmas Holiday.
Life can be so sweet, when you have a specific objective in mind.
Rock on my friend.
2008 March 26 Wednesday.
Wow!
What an exciting day. Not just for me, but also for many other people as
well, including the
Charles Hamel Family. They arrived at the Asahikawa
International Airport about 45 minutes late, on a JAL flight from Tokyo.
I didn't mind the extra waiting time at all. In fact, I enjoyed
looking into every nook and cranny of the Terminal
Building, that I was allowed to go into. I was a bit surprised to see
so many people at the airport today. I heard many people speaking
Chinese and Korean as well. A good sign that the rest of Asia, and the
world, is waking up to the natural beauty that IS this island paradise,
HOKKAIDO. I also saw several groups of high school students,
some of whom were wearing their school uniforms, and waiting to board an
airplane bound for Korea. They must be going on some kind of
exchange/friendship program. I was happy to see it.
Hopefully, they will take some interest in the Korean Language, and realize that
the cultural and linguistic differences between the two countries, are very small
indeed. The Asahikawa International Airport, has really improved its
image within the past several years. The gift shops were all
very busy, and there were several locations around the terminal building, where
big flat screen TVs, were playing DVDs of the Asahiyama Zoo, and various other
festivals held annually throughout Hokkaido. I was impressed by the
picture quality of the moving pictures, and also the fact that there were
subtitles in English, Korean and Chinese too. Yeah, the people
who put these things together, really get it. What's good for
Hokkaido, is having more and more people, who are adventurous and ambitious,
coming here to live and work, on a long term basis.
Japan needs more children and Hokkaido is no exception. I have known
about the Charles Hamel Family since August of 2006, but I have never met them
face to face, until today. What an interesting experience it was!
In July 2006, the family began making plans to move to Japan, to live and work
on a long term basis. In August, they found my website while doing
research on the internet. At that time, I did not have any email
address displayed anywhere on my website, and I never check the ADMIN account
which is a part of every website. So, Charles Hamel made a long
distance call from Houston Texas and left a message on my answering machine
which included his email address. The next day I sent him an email
saying that I would be willing to answer any and all questions they might have
about living and working in Hokkaido, and that was the start of a long
correspondence between me and him. In the meantime he started
several websites of his own, and I would read his posts, and he would read my
blog, and we would send emails back and forth, about various things.
Today, he and his family arrived at Asahikawa International Airport, and I and
several other people were there to greet them. Welcome to Hokkaido
my friends. I know you will enjoy living here as much as I do.
Maybe even more! The best part of the year is just getting started,
and there are many places to go and lots of things to see. It's a
whole new world, starting again and again. All of your hard work in
preparing to make this big move has just started to pay off. You're
gonna love it here.
2008 March 24 Monday and March 25 Tuesday.
On
Monday as usual, I had a 90 minute lesson starting at 13:00 with the wonderful
folks who are members of the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. I didn't prepare a
printed handout for them this week, but instead talked about my experience last
Thursday of listening to the 旭川市ななかまど少年少女合唱団 第２３回 定期演奏会, while showing them the
printed programs from that event. Other members of the group had
other things to talk about, including one young lady who has been a member for
exactly one year. Today, she talked about how she and her
husband have gained some body weight, as compared to the time when they got
married, just a few years ago. I know exactly what they are talking
about. Same thing happened to me and Ikuko as well. It's
that sedentary life-style that really puts on the kilograms. On
Tuesday, I unexpectedly got an email from an American guy whom I haven't seen
nor heard from, in over 12 years. In fact, I used to work for
him as an English Conversation Instructor at his business which was called
Asahikawa Eikaiwa AECS. This business is no longer in business, but
it used to be located on the 5th floor of the Hokkaido Bank Building in downtown
Asahikawa. He and his family now live near Seattle Washington
in the USA, and his oldest son works for Microsoft in the X-BOX division.
Anyway, he sent me an email because he had just stumbled upon my website, while
using the Google Search Engine, to read things about Asahikawa. I
was very happy to hear from him, and told him so in my reply email.
He says he really misses Hokkaido and all of the beautiful snow that we have
here. He mentioned that he really doesn't like the almost constant
rain, that is the prevailing climate of the Pacific Northwest Region.
I agree with him. I too, lived in the Seattle area for about 6
years, before I came to live and work in Asahikawa for the first time in March
of 1990. After about two and one half years, the university
that I was working for went bankrupt, so I and many other people lost our jobs.
I was really disappointed by this, because my original plan was to live and work
in Japan for at least 5 years, so that I could master the spoken and written
language. Besides, I really fell in love with Asahikawa City and
Hokkaido in general. In October of 1992, I returned to Seattle
briefly in order to take care of some nasty family business, and get my teaching
certificate for TESL/TEFL from Seattle University. When all of that
nonsense was taken care of, I bought a ONE WAY AIRLINE TICKET from Seattle to
Narita and then from Haneda to Asahikawa. I arrived back in
Asahikawa on February 12, 1993. The coldest time of the year.
This was a very bold and risky move for me, because my previous work visa was
due to expire in mid May of 1993. I had no job lined up before I
left the USA. I didn't even have a permanent place to live.
Was I crazy??? Yes, crazy like a fox. I had
a very specific objective in mind, and I was willing to risk my very life, to
make it happen. I went to all of the English Conversation
Schools in Asahikawa, looking for a job. One of the big
nationwide chain schools offered me a job at their branch school in Hakodate,
but I turned it down because I wanted to live and work in Asahikawa.
When I interviewed with Asahikawa Eikaiwa AECS, the owner said that my Japanese
Language skills were very good, and my certificate in TESL/TEFL was also a big
plus. He said that he would call me again, if he had a job opening
for me. To make a long story short, the job had already been
promised to a Canadian guy, but as fate would have it, the Canadian guy's mother
in Canada got sick, so he had to turn down the job, and return to Canada.
It was the lucky break (for me) that I had put my neck on the chopping block
for. I got the job, and started working there in April of
1993. In May of the same year, the owner and I went to Sapporo
so that I could renew my work visa, and stay in Japan for at least one more
year. After 3 wonderful years of working at this school,
the owner and his family decided to sell the business and move back to the USA.
When I met the new owners of the school, I knew right away that I was dealing
with religious crackpots, and wanted no part of it. None the
less, I stayed on the job until the end of my contract on March 31 of 1996.
Then, I quit that job and started my own little classroom in June of 1996.
I am still in business 12 years later. The timing of this
email from Seattle, is even more amazing when considering the fact that
Charles Hamel and Family, will be arriving at
the Asahikawa International Airport tomorrow at about 12:00 noon.
More about the Hamel Family, and their connection to me, in tomorrow's blog.
This is another story that really illustrates the true meaning of SYNCHRONICITY.
It's the real deal.
2008 March 21 Friday thru March 23 Sunday.
Friday
was the day when many kindergartens and elementary schools held their graduation
ceremonies. As a result, some of my students were absent from my
classroom on that day. I didn't have any classes on Saturday this
week, so I took advantage of my extra free time, and drove all over the main
city areas of Asahikawa, going through all of the major districts.
Something I haven't done for many months. All of the major
roads and sidewalks are completely clear of snow and ice. Spring is
most certainly here, in full force. Many other people were out
driving around, just for the fun of it, despite the high price of gasoline at
the pump. So what?!? An automobile is no good if you
can't use it when you want to. Sunday was the Christian celebration
of
Easter. As the story goes,
Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, put into a grave, and then miraculously came
back to life on Sunday, and rose up into heaven. Sounds too good to
be true? To me, it sounds more like the story of the winter
solstice, put into a different time frame. None the less, millions
upon millions of people all around the world, celebrate this occasion in many
and varied ways. For me, Sunday was just
Another Day in Paradise. At this
time of the year in Hokkaido, anyone who goes outdoors, can see, taste, smell
and feel this island coming back to life. Again. Just
like it does every year. The cycles of the seasons.
Something you can really depend upon.
2008 March 20 Thursday.
Today
is a National Holiday in Japan known as 春分の日 which means the Spring
Equinox. As such, my classroom and a lot of other schools and
government offices were closed for the day. Therefore, I had a lot of
free time today to enjoy the spring-like weather and we got out and around to
see a
few familiar places. I was even so bold as to wear sandals with no
socks today, for the first time in many months. It felt great until the sun went down. Then my tippy toes began to feel cold. All of the snow in the lowlands has
not yet melted, and the night time temps, are hovering at zero, or just below
zero. Socks and shoes are a must for the happy hiker, who is
walking around at night. Our first out of classroom experience for
today, was a short walk over to Crystal Hall, where we listened to the
旭川市ななかまど少年少女合唱団 第２３回 定期演奏会. Two of my students belong to this group and
they asked me and Ikuko to come and listen to their performances.
This chorus group is made up entirely of elementary, junior high school and high
school students, only. In a word, they were excellent!!!
What beautiful sounds they could make with their young voices. The
entire show lasted almost 2 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it.
After the show was finished at about 16:30, Ikuko and I went for a drive along
the back roads to Biei and then up to the ShiroGane Onsen 白金温泉 area.
The gate at the road leading up to the Mt. Tokachi Dake Observation 十勝岳 望岳台 area
was still closed because of snow on the road, so we had to turn back and return
to Biei Town. There, we stopped at 山頭火ラーメン and ate dinner.
After that, it was a slow drive along the dark back roads from Biei Town to
Asahikawa City. For the first day of spring, it was an excellent day
indeed. Many more like it to come, starting again tomorrow.
2008 March 17 Monday thru March 19 Wednesday.
On
Monday, at the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会, I talked a bit about
Saint Patrick's Day, and how it is celebrated
in the USA and other countries around the world. My ancestry is
about 1/4 Irish and 3/4 German, so I have some affinity for this celebration.
I have fond memories from my elementary school days, of a certain custom that
was popular at that time. If a person wasn't wearing something GREEN in color, the other students could take their fingers and pinch them.
This was a symbolic gesture to represent a snake bite, according to the Irish Legend of Saint Patrick's
Day. According to this legend, St. Patrick was walking along the
roads throughout Ireland, while playing a flute. When the snakes on
the island heard the flute music, they all started to follow St. Patrick as he
walked along the roads. Being a clever guy, St. Patrick saw an
opportunity to rid the island of all snakes, so he led them all up to the cliffs
that overlook the sea, and the snakes all fell off of the cliff and into the
sea. That is why, there are no snakes in Ireland to this day!!!
I can't testify as to the veracity of this story, but it does make the
imagination ready, for a good legend.
On Wednesday evening after my last class of the day was finished at 19:00, Ikuko and I got on a bus and rode out to the Suehiro District of Asahikawa, heading for a Korean Restaurant known as 韓国村. Neither of us have ever been to this restaurant before, and the objective of our visit was to celebrate Ikuko's birthday anniversary, which was on March 11. We were both very busy on that day, so we took advantage of some extra free time today, to have a birthday party for her. This restaurant is managed by a Korean person, and the food is authentic. Each table is contained within a small private room, and the atmosphere is truly relaxing. I was pleased to see that the entire menu was written in both Japanese and Korean, and I had a good time reading the Korean Language names for all of the selections on the menu. After about 90 minutes of good food and good drink, Ikuko and I paid our bill, and went outside again to walk back to the bus stop. Unfortunately, there were no more buses for the day, that go directly to the Kagura District where we live. So, I flagged down a taxi. If you like Korean food, I highly recommend this restaurant. You can visit their official website by clicking here. 韓国村
2008 March 11 Tuesday thru March 16 Sunday.
Instead
of snow, it has been raining a lot this week. This, is a good sign.
A sign that warmer temperatures, and an explosion of new life, will soon be upon
us. Here in Hokkaido, and all around the world.
Today on Sunday, I took advantage of the excellent sunny skies, and went for a
drive to Kami Furano, and then back up North again, for a swing-by thru
HigashiKawa Town and ShiBiNai Village. The farther you get away from
the city center of Asahikawa, the sweeter and more fragrant the air becomes.
There is a very noticeable difference. The district I live in, is
just across the Chubetsu River from the center of the city. It
will be even closer, in the very near future. Two more bridges are
scheduled to be built, within the next 1 to 5 years. Then, Kagura
WILL BE in the center of the city! YIKES!!! What ever
happened to my Country Living??? This location is good for my little
classroom, but the air is not so sweet, in this area of Hokkaido.
Suddenly, I remember back to living in LA. Hell A.
No complaints here, in Happy Camper Land, Private Hokkaido. While I
was at the top of a very well known hill in Kami Furano, I took some photos of
the clearly visible snow covered mountain range in front of me. As I
was doing so, I heard a jet airplane coming from the west. As
I looked up, I could see that it was a regularly scheduled passenger airliner,
taking off from Asahikawa International Airport, and heading for parts,
southwest from here. I was able to snap a photo of the
airplane, with a big rainbow in the misty sky above, as you can see from the
photo above/left. There are many flights, every day. It
is easy to take off, when you know you can fly.
2008 March 8 Saturday thru March 10 Monday.
It
is getting warmer day by day, and the snow is melting fast. Sunny
days are noticeably warmer, and the cold nights continue. Don't
remove your winter tires yet. There are still more snowfalls to
come, but many less than during the pervious 4 or 5 months.
Hokkaido, during the the months of NO SNOW, is a totally free nature zone, if
ever there was one. Walking, driving, riding a bicycle, riding a
horse, riding anything at all, is much easier and more enjoyable,
than it is during the season of MUCH SNOW. The season of no snow,
will soon be upon us.
Every Saturday morning starting at about 10:30, I have a private lesson with a very bright and intelligent elementary school girl. As I was getting ready for the lesson at about 10:00, all of a sudden a big noise that sounded like someone was using a big Wet/Dry Vacuum Cleaner, started reverberating throughout my entire classroom. At first, I though maybe the heating/cooling AC unit on my balcony was acting up, but when I checked it out, it was working OK. Finally at about 11:30 when the lesson was finished, I went outside to look and see if I could find the source of the constant noise. I found it to be coming from the kitchen exhaust fans 換気扇 of the Soba Noodle Restaurant directly below my classroom. I asked the building manager if she would go into the kitchen and ask about the source of the noise. She did so, and came up to my classroom a few minutes later to explain that the fan system had started having trouble on Friday night, and that it is continuing still today. A few hours later, the restaurant manager came up to my classroom to apologize for the disturbance, and to inform me that the fan will be replaced as soon as possible. It seems that it will take about one week to get a new unit. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of these people. They are good neighbors. However, when compared to the noise that I had to put up with during last summer, when the entire outside of this building was being completely redone, this noise is not so bad. Things could be worse, but they aren't. In fact, the noise will be gone by about next Saturday or Sunday. Silence is Golden.
2008 March 4 Tuesday thru March 7 Friday.
The
graduation season is upon us again, and today I was able to attend a gorgeous
graduation party 謝恩会 for the JA Hokkaido Kosei Nursing School, which was held at
a wedding palace known as
Bloomington Hill in the TakaSagoDai 高砂台 area of
this city. In all years past, this event was held at the Palace
Hotel or, more often, at the Grand Hotel in the downtown area.
This year was different. I liked the atmosphere of this room,
because of the very high A-shaped ceiling. It had a sort of Northern
European feel about it. The food was pretty good as well, and the
drinks were nothing special. Also in attendance, was a retired
physics professor, whom I have known for many years. He sent
his son to my school for a few months, before the son went off to Stony Brook
New York, to study physics for himself. After about four years
in the USA, the son came back to Hokkaido, and got his PhD in physics from
Hokkaido University. When I
went over and talked to the retired professor again tonight, he told me that his
son was now living near Nagoya, and working for a very large and well known
company that makes digital devices of many kinds. His son is
currently in the research department, developing a device that will merge mobile
phones with GPS, and display a very detailed navigation map, to the end user.
That sounds like a very interesting project. I'm sure he enjoys his
work very much. I enjoy my work also. A work worth
doing, is the best work of all.
2008 March 1 Saturday thru March 3 Monday.
Again
this Monday at 13:00, I had my usual class with the adults who
belong to the 神楽公民館で英会話を楽しむ会. Last Monday, I gave each member of the
group a copy of my two page essay entitled; Embarrassing Moments Part 2.
This mini essay, is the true story of an event that happened during the summer of
2006, when I tried to light my BBQ fire, and have a cookout. You
too, can
read this mini essay by
clicking here.
At the end of last week's lesson, I asked each and every member of the group, to think about one or two, of their very own embarrassing moments, and tell the entire class about it, during our next lesson. That next lesson was today. There were some very interesting and amusing stories told by the members of our English Conversation Circle today. One younger lady told us about how she had burned her bedroom carpet with a hot iron, while ironing her husband's white shirts. Ouch. Another lady told about us how she and her family members had missed an airplane flight, because she had drank far too much alcohol the night before, and couldn't get out of bed. Hmmmm..... One lady even had a very similar story to mine, that happened when she was a university student, during a freshman rush. But perhaps the most interesting story of all, was about an experience that happened to one lady, when she was just a high school student. She was standing at the bus stop on a cold winter morning, when a car was slowly passing by in front of her. She did not have her glasses on, and she thought she saw one of her high school friends, riding in that car. So, she waved at the other girl. The car stopped, and the window was rolled down. When the girl waiting for the bus took a closer look inside the car, she realized that the other girl inside the car, was not her friend, but a complete stranger! How embarrassing. But, this story has a happy ending. The girl inside the car asked the other girl who had been waiting for the bus, to get into the car and come to school together with her. Luckily, they both attended the same high school. And ever since that day, the two girls would often ride together in that father's car, and go to school. She had made a completely new friend, and all because she had waved at a girl whom she thought was someone else. What a nice ending to another true story of life as it happens. I don't think I could even make up a better story than that one.
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