an one-piece

I went to shop with my sister today. She came home last night from Fukuoka. She won't be able to stay at home on a new year's day because she has to work. I asked her to go shopping.

I'll have a class reunion in a week so I wanted to get clothes for it. I tried some clothes on but couldn't find any I liked.
After we looked at several shops finally I found a black one-piece made from wool. Also it was on sale so I was lucky! I bought it and I was happy. My sister helped me to choose and decide. This shopping was a success.

the end of this year

Finally I'm done all my part-time this year!!!
I worked every day through this week! I got tired but I think it was a good chance for me to know more about the job.

I started this job at the beginning of this December and I wasn't sure about it yet. Especially taking on a phone was very difficult because I had to understand what a person on the phone wanted to know, ask, talk with staff or so on. Even if he/she asked me something about the system of the school I couldn't answer it. I was afraid of taking phone. Through this week, however, gradually I got used to it and got some confidence.

Also I think I made closer to the other staff. One of the staff was not full-time and she did jobs like mine. She was very kind so I could ask her many things. She worked at some different companies before and knew well about computer and worked much faster than me. I liked her very much.

Although today was the last day for her to work there. She quit this job and will get married in spring. I'm very happy I could meet her. I know her only for a month but she taught me a lot. Now I can continue the job because of her.

We don't know when and where you meet an important person for you. I strongly felt that today.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is over. How was yours?
I worked my part-time all day! After that, I went to my friend's house to have a party.
I work at the office which is very close to a department store. I got some salad, chicken, sushi and a cake from there. It was crazy there! So many people were buying Christmas dinners and it was so crowded. One Sushi store had a line up! I was so surprised at this sight.
Usually I avoid to go out when an event goes on like a festival and of course Chistmas. I don't like crowded places. I get tired by energy of people. But this time I had no idea where I could get any kinds of foods at the same place. Anyway I could get what I wanted so it was good.
At my friend's, we had the dinner and talked a couple hours. She bought some new kinds of drinks so we tried them. That's all about my Christmas but it was good enough.

slideshare is difficult...

These slideshare pictures are from my stay in Canada 2005-2006. Have a look!

a Christmas Party

Tonight we had a Christmas party at a sign language lesson.
I brought a cake and many different Christmas goods from last year. One of them, I brought some hair clasps with horns of reindeer and moose. I just had four of them and we had four members so that was perfect. We all put them and had a big piece of cake, a glass of fake champagne and cups of black currant tea. We took pictures each other and had a very good time.

Almost all this 2006 is over and next 2007 is coming. I had so many new experiences and so much fun this year. I hope next year will also be a good year and I can find a good job.

I'd like to do my blog check today.


How many total posts? 25
How many words? (Calculate this last.) 4,782

How many posts
in October: 6
in November: 9
in December: 10
in January:

(use labels for the following)
How many posts
about books: 8
with links: 4
with pictures/photos: 11

Sidebar: Do you have:
a labels section: YES
a Kumamoto links section: YES
other blogs: YES
(including at least 2 blogs from other classes in the WinK community: YES )

Comments (look in your dashboard):
How many comments are there on your blog? 16


That's all now. I have to write more about books and put more links with them.
It's very big I couldn't write anything in Korea... I have to catch up!!

a Christmas Present

I got a Christmas present from Jansi in Canada! She and I are very good friends. Her mother was my host family and she often helped me. To me, she is a friend, but at the same time, she is my mother in Canada.

She made a calender for me. It has many pictures and comments in it. I can easily image she spent many hours for it. I was so happy about it.

With a parcel from her, I also got some Christmas cards from the school staff I worked with. They told me about something new after I came back. Hopefully they'll have a nice Christmas and a happy new year...!!

Shakespeare Forum in PUK

I went to my school today to attend the Shakespeare forum. A lady came from Kyoto gave us a presentation about Shakespeare, especially how Japanese accepted his works. It was very interesting because I've never noticed that his works gave such big inflence to Japanese writers. After that, professors of our school also gave presentations. That was interesting, too. I don't usually see their faces as scholars so it was something new for me.
As I had to leave before the forum was over I couldn't see all presentations. However, I had a good time there.

sign language

As you know every Thursdays is a sign language lesson day. We usually do the words for a test but today was different. We talked about many things all the time.

When we speak a learning language, of course we have words or expressions which we don't know how to say. In that case, we use finger letters. They are signs to show from あ to ん of Japanese sounds. They are very useful. We show the word or expression with them to our teacher and she tells us its sign language. After we learned them, I think our communication got much smoother and faster than writing down the words on a board.

Next week will be our last lesson of this year. We're planning to have a Christmas party! It will be fun!!

I love Anne♪♪♪

I read a book, Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.

This is a world famous book and my favorite! I read it first time when I was in the high school. I love Anne and her family and friends. Every time I read a part, Matthew died, I become almost cry. He was a so nice man and a first friend of Anne. When she wanted a dress with puffsleeves, Marilla said no but he got one for her. He was with Anne at anytime. Loosing someone important made Anne more stronger. She became a teacher in a town to be with Marilla.

Also I love the part of Anne and Gilbert. In this book they are not good friends but gradually they become closer through this Anne series. I like both, Anne and Gilbert so I was very happy when I read about them.

As I love this book so much, one of my big plan this summer in Canada was to visit Prince Edward Island and to see the land Anne lived. PEI is famous for the place as Anne was born. L. M. Montgomery was from PEI and made this story. In PEI, there are many places about Anne.
Of course I went to the Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery's birth place and so on. Not only I visited some these places, but also I watched some musicals.

I watched "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne and Gilbert". "Anne of Green Gables" was the best! It was awesome and perfect!! All casts were as they were in the book and music was also great. I bought a CD after the show, actually. Because the show was so good and I saw a poster of "Anne and Gilbert", I went to watch it. It was okey. I enjoyed it. But to tell you the truth, it was just after one night I watched the first show and it was so good, I didn't feel great. Anyway it was worth watching these musicals for me.

These pictures you can see at the top are from my trip.

This is a HP of the musical, "Anne of Green Gables".
http://www.confederationcentre.com/anne.asp
Also, this is a HP of government of PEI.
http://www.gov.pe.ca/greengables/index.php3

old friends

Today I met my old friends who have known each other since high school. One of them is in Nagoya now and this weekend she came home. I hadn't met her for more than one year. I forgot the last time we met before. I think the spring of 2005. We talked a lot, for about three hours.

After we left the restaurant, my another friend's husband came to pick my friends up. Then, she asked me to give me a ride so I did. We talked more in a car and I enjoyed driving home. Actually she just had her birthday last week and I had a present for her. But I forgot to bring it with me today. I could give it to her so it was nice, too.

We have another chance to meet each other soon. Our high school friends will have a reunion this coming new year at a hotel. I'm looking forward to this reunion from now even I don't know what I should wear for it.

folks&fairy tale 2

I read a book, The Nightingale.

Long long time ago, there was a king in China. He lived in a beautiful palace and its behind was a forest. A nightingale was living in it. He was very famous because of his sweet singing. People wrote books about him and the king read one of them. The king has never heard his singing and really wanted to hear it, he asked his servant to bring the nightingale. The servant found the nightingale and asked to come to the palace. The nightingale agreed and went to the palace. The king loved his singing very much so he asked the nightingale to stay with him and made a nice cage. One day Japanese king sent a toy nightingale to Chinese king.It sang very well so he loved it. Then he seemed to forget about the real nightingale so the nightingale went back to the forest. After for a while the toy broke. Several years later, the king got very sick. He missed the singing but there was no nightingales. One night the real nightingale heard the king was so sick and came to his window. He sang a song so well that the king became well. The king asked the nightingale to come back again but the nightingale said to him no. Instead of that, the nightingale told him to come to his window every night to sing. The nightingale's singing made him very happy.

Last night I had a sign language lesson. These days we've started to study some words which are included in a test. The licensing examination of sign language is what we are trying to pass.

There are 1st grade~7th grade in it, and I have passed 3rd grade last year. Next chance to receive it is in March. So, I was going to challenge 2nd grade and printed out its extent of words. Then, I found a big thing. The extent of grade2 is so wide!! Even when I received grade3, it was hard to remember all its extent of words. Also I have an year blank and I forgot many of them. My friends who are in the lesson have 4th grade now and next March they're going to challenge 3rd grade. So I decided not to have the test next March and to study 3rd grade's words with them again. That would be better.

My goal by my guraduation is... to pass the 2nd grade!!

Check this link more about the licensing examination of sign language!

http://www.shuwaken.org/

new job

I started to work part-time this December. It has a lot of different works and needs computer skills. But I'm not good at computer.

Yesterday I had to print out some information on postcards. I changed the info using the last time's one and kept it in the computer. Then a member told me to open it with another computer to print out so I did. I found it in a folder and opened. ...Oops! Its design became dim! I didn't know what to do. I think it's because of the computer. Members were busy and couldn't find out the way to correct so that was it. I have to do it next time, I guess.

Still I can't get used to the job but I just started it. Let's see what happens from now on.

Jane Austen

I read a book, persuasion by Jane Austen.

I had an image that books which are written by Jane Austen must be difficult to read. But this book has changed my mind. It was very interesting and I finished to read it in an hour.

The main story is about a girl, Anne. When she was nineteen years old, she loved a man and wanted to marry him. But her father who didn't care much about her didn't allow and her close friend who was her mother's friend talked to her to wait and find a richer, more important man. The older woman's persuasion slowly began to work. She told the man she couldn't marry him. He left there and then she didn't want to marry anybody.
More than seven years after that, he came back to the country and she met him. But they didn't talk each other like before. Then some events were happened around them and finally.....

This book is one of "Penguin Readers" series. This is a book series for some English levels and this Persuasion is placed in Elementary level. English is very easy. Also the stories are simplified so it makes easier understand. I think this series are very good way to touch many good, famous books. I'd like to read them more.

folk and fairy tale

I read a book, "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse" by Violet Findley.

There was a mouse living in the country. One day his friend living in the city came to visit him and they played together. They played so hard that got hungry. They went into the field and ate some corn and beans. The city mouse told the country mouse the food was boring and suggested to go to the city. They went to the tall building and plaeyed together. When they got hungry, they found nice foods in the dining room. As soon as they started to eat, a cat and a dog and a person came in so they had to leave and hide for their life. The country mouse thought the city was nice but corn and safty were better than cherry pie and danger. He decided to leave the city. He went home and thought there was no place like home.

red leaves, yellow leaves

These pictures are ginkgoes from our university. They are very troublesome in fall because of its nuts. But now, it has turned yellow and is very pretty. It makes me feel comfortable and calm me down. One big moment I really feel nice be a Japanese.

Talking about the colours of leaves, I wanted to see red leaves of maple trees in Canada. It's very famous and of course I expected to see them when I went there last year. It was still September. Although, it almost finished and I missed it!! I didn't expect Canada's winter came so fast...

Before I left Canada this September, I decided to see red leaves and pick some! I waited and waited for turning colours till just a few days before I left. But!! Leaves were just getting yellow at that time and finally I gave up. I picked some up and brought to the school. I laminated them and they are my treasures now.

Also I learned a trivia about leaves from my hostfamily. She is an artist and likes batik. When I did batik with her, I drew maple leaves and coloured with red without thinking. Then she found it and told me, "we don't get that red here. It gets cold so quick. Leaves fall off before turning red so ours are usually yellow." I imagined only red maple trees like on travel brochures. But now I know, it depends on the area what colour leaves get. It was North Alberta I went. If I would go to the east coast, I could see red leaves then. It's very interesting and the difference makes originality of the area.

What is "batik"? Check this website, the world of batik by Yuko Nakata.

http://www.batik-yuko.com/

about my new job

Today I went shopping to YumeTown Hikarinomori with my friend. We both had some things to buy and also it was a kind of a refreshment before we both start new part-time jobs this Friday.

I got a job at an English language school in Kumamoto city. Another friend of mine was working there but she had to quit because she got a full-time. Usually a full-time job starts in April but the office asked her to start working in this November. She introduced me to the school as her successor.

Now I'm anxious about my new job because I have no idea of it yet. But at the same time, I'm looking forward to working there with English. I wonder how I'll do but let's see. First of all, I have to learn a lot of the work!

Ramona

Do you know "Ramona"?
I know Ramona is a popular name but who I'm talking about is Ramona Quimby.

There are eight books of Ramona by Beverly Clearly.

Ramona is a little girl and likes some tricky things. In each books she gets into trouble but learns something from them.

Ramona has an older sister, Beezus. She is a smart girl and often helps her little sister.

I like both girls because they're so cute. And every time I read the book they reminded me a girl who had a little brother. They often fight but are good friends as Ramona and Beezus.

Another reason why I like Ramona series is author's description. I think her vivid description gives characters reality. Many times I felt like "I know, I know this Ramona's feeling!" Also she describes very details of Ramona's way of thinking. It makes me love her more!

Unfortunately I don't think we have this Ramona series in our library yet. I hope we can have them and many people can read and love Ramona.

If you're interested in Ramona, have a look at this Beverly Clearly site!

http://www.beverlycleary.com/index.html

a Fable

I'd like to introduce you a fable today. The fable is The lion and the mouse.

One day, a lion,the king of the jungle, was laying on the grass because it was too hot to hunt. .A little mouse was on her way with her dinner. However, she was so hurry that she didn't notice the lion. When she crossed his paw, he felt a tickle and found her. Of course he caught her and said, "you will be my dinner!" The mouse didn't give up. She asked him to let her go and help him out one day. He thought that would never happened but admired her brave, let her go away.
The next day the lion was hunting and stepped on a trap. A large net covered him and he couldn't get away from it. He cried and the mouse could hear his voice. She ran straight to him as fast as she could. Once she got there, there was no one to help him except her. She tried to chew the trap and finally he got free.
The lion thanked her and admired her as a little friend.
Its moral is,
Little friends can be great friends.

a girl who has a friend of blind

I'd like to write about a book today. It's "Lilly Makes a Friend" by Brenda Bellingham.

Lilly is a girl who likes Yodel. One day she went to school late and on her way to a classroom she found a boy, Davy. He was crouching over the sidewalk. She told him her name because he was a blind. Then she tried to help him but what he wanted..... was yucky worms! With this as a start, she tried to help him but seemed to get into trouble. When he wanted to play soccer with her, how she did?

I didn't know this book was about a relationship between a girl and a blind boy when I borrowed. I don't know why they knew each other but the story is interesting. The boy has interests toward everything. I can understand why he can put worms in his pocket! Because he doesn't have a sense of "yucky" looking. I don't know anything about blind people so it's good to read.

shopping&movie mood

This after school, I went to watch a movie with my friend, Yu. We took a bus to get there but missed a bus stop we should have got off so walked for about 10 min. to the theatre.

We watched the devil wears Prada. I knew this movie when I was in Canada but I didn't have a chance to watch it. Finally it just came to Japan last Saturday!

I was in a mood to go and watch a movie today. I don't know why(><) Also Wednesdays we, ladies, can watch with only ￥1,000! I could go home after classes before it rained, but I didn't. I didn't want to miss this chance.

The movie we watched started at 19:10 so we had enough time to shop before. I bought an umbrella. Yu bought a skirt for her friend's wedding. It was fun to shop. We had our supper there, too. Then! We noticed it was already just after 19:10!!

We ran into the theatre and thanks to many advertisements, we could watch the whole movie. It was not bad. The girl who worked at a "devil" was very cute and there were so many nice clothes in the movie. That was good.

When we went out from the room, I got surprised that so many people were there to watch movies. Because of Wednesday? or something interesting movie? I don't know.

Anyway it was a good day. The picture at the top is from Kumamoto down-town, Tsuruya. You can see Christmas light-ups everywhere now.

a confusion of a presentation

One surprise was given to me yesterday... My friend who went to Korea together last month called my cell and told me "tomorrow, we might have to make presentations!!"

"What's the presentation!? I didn't know it at all!! Oh, my god!!"

I knew it was my problem that I didn't know when I had to do it, but tomorrow!!?? That was too soon!

According to her, it was our turn to do presentations today(this Friday) for sure. However, last week we didn't have a class because of our school festival, so there were some other classmates who didn't (couldn't) do last week. We guessed today would be their turn and we wouldn't have enough time to do ours.

Still, we weren't sure we had to do them or not. ....Finally, we gave up(><)! and dicided, promised each other to get ready for them.

This early morning, I finished mine at last. I made it! I went to another class and advanced this blog. I was taught how to link my friends on my page and so on. It was fun to know new things.

At the beginning of the class which I was supposed to do my presentation. The professor told us to change the schedule and of course ours became next week!

I was happy about it but I got tired...(><)

My First Book Review

Finally! I can tell you about a book.

Its title is "Kitchen Table Talk". (by Kay Hetherly)

Its author is an American and she came to Japan. She found many interesting differences between the U.S. and Japan which people usually don't realize. In this book, she tells them with short stories.

I liked her short stories because they were very casual but something new to me. They gave me more ideas I didn't know before. Also her writing style is full with a warm, comfortable mood. While I was reading, it made me comfortable, too.

You can borrow this book from me anytime if you want. Just let me know!

the Blank for a month...(><)

I'm so sorry... I didn't write this blog almost for a month.

After I wrote the last my blog, I left Japan and visited Korea for ten days. It was for teaching practice. My major is English but I'm also taking the class of teaching Japanese for foreign people.

Actually this course was one of my biggest reasons I decided to enter my university. I wanted to study not only English but also teaching Japanese. That's why I'm here.

In Korea, I did my plan twice, the same one but to the other students. It was hard! difficult! But I think I did my best and it became a good experience to me.

Through ten days, I had a lot of chances to enjoy Korean beer! It's very cheap to drink in Korea. I went to drink five nights after all. Every time I met new friends and it was fun to talk with them.

I came back to Japan last Monday. The next morning when I woke up, I found my throat was strange. I caught a cold!! I don't know why.... Anyway my teaching practice is over.

My cold stayed for a week but now it's gone. I'm fine!
Now I have to write something about a book!!!!! I haven't done it yet.... During this week!

volunteer

I'm done another busy weekend. From last Thursday night to Sunday I couldn't sleep enough. The Thursday night was my fault. I didn't get ready to do a presentation till just a night ago. I was planning in my mind but didn't write it out or finish it in advance. That's me. That's not new, no surprise to me. As a result I did it good at the presentation so it's okey.

From Friday night to Sunday I joined camping program as I told you here before. I helped kids to make bamboo planters, to visit a nursing home and so on. I stayed there for two nights and I noticed one thing. It is, after kids got slept in, we volunteer had a lot of things to do! Every kid had a notebook which they wrote about each day. We had to write something for each kid. There was another paper to put anything we noticed about kids. It took us so long to finish for every kid. Also at Saturday night each of us got a square paper to get messages from everyone there. We didn't have enough time to finish it so we did it after kids went to bed. Then on Sunday only kids messages they need to collect.

Like this I don't know this volunteer sounds like hard or not, it was so fun to me. Next camping is in next February! I can't wait for it.

Fun Fun Sign Language

I had a sign language lesson tonight. We call it a lesson but almost all the time we just talk about something new with of course a sign language. We've done this lesson since June of 2003 when we were in the first year of the university. I love this lesson! To communicate with using a new tool is so fun! Our teacher is a woman who can't hear or speak. When we just started this lesson we used gesture and writing on a white board. By the way, she is so cute! She also looks so young. To express her feelings she uses muscles of her face very well. We think that's why she doesn't have much wrinkles!

Last year I couldn't join them because I wasn't in Japan. Even in Canada I looked for a sign language club or something like that but there was no chance to use it.

Just before I left Japan, I passed the third grade of the sign language exam. It required more difficult words and reading skill so I studied hard. Now, after an year without any studying, my sign language skill got bad... Although, I still like it and think I want to get better so first, I want to get my skills back! I'm always looking forward to coming Thursdays!

Volunteer Day

This after school I went to the library to get some books for making a teaching plan. In two weeks I'm going to Korea to do some teaching Japanese trainings. Before that I have to show the plan to the class. It is this Friday! I'm still thinking about the plan. It is very difficult! I'm sure I won't be able to sleep till Friday...

Another thing I did today was a kind of volunteer. I helped some kids. There is a sort of camping(?) program for kids. They stay at a big house(?) for four nights to learn some social skills with the other kids. They cook own meals and do everything by themselves. Tonight is the first night. I tried to remember thier names and helped to make their own team name&flag. It was my first time to help them so I didn't know what I should do. But I tried to speak to them and finally they finished their task so it was good. Just before I left there, when I told some girls I was leaving to go home tonight, a girl told me not to go home and to stay over night. I was very happy to hear that. I won't go there tomorrow but will go on Friday after the class. Now I'm very looking forward to meeting them again!

Busy Day

It was a busy day today. I worked at my university for Teaching Japanese Society(this English name could be wrong). This meeting was held yesterday and today but I only worked today. My job was to record the presentations with cassette tapes and to keep the time for each presenters and let them know how long they still have left.

It's very difficult to use a machine which I've never touched before! And... I did wrong.... I didn't know once the tape was over then it started to go backward! That was okey, I understood it recording on the other side.(Is this right??) But!! When the next person started and I put another tape and pushed "play & record" at the same time as I was taught, the tape went backward again! and again and again............. I tried to find out what was going on but I couldn't find why it kept going backward!

Finally a lady who was a chair found a button witten "reverse direction". Right after that I could start to record but I missed first five minutes. That was a sweat.

Full Moon Viewing

Good morning! How are you today??

Last night, the moon was full and it was so beautiful. The sky was clear and no clouds so we could see it very well. My mom made supper and ate at the park near my house with people living around there. Supper was very good and the full moon was perfect! It was a very nice night.

If you didn't see the moon last night, you should do that tonight! That's pretty cool!

One Notice from My Friend

Hello! I'm Hiroko. This is my first blog in my life. First time is in English!! Isn't it so exciting!?? I didn't know about this class, I mean I didn't know we use a blog for this class so I'm very happy.

This morning I phoned my Canadian friend and noticed one thing. It is... I'm getting forgetting English!! Already!! I came back to Japan just three weeks ago. In Canada, I didn't notice how fast she spoke. But!! This is a good notice to me. I have to keep up my English even in Japan. This blog will help me, I'm sure.

I'll write about my daily life and of course about books I'll read.
Okey, see you later!