Piko's talk show

It was the second day of the school festival of last year. I went to the talk show with my friends. Piko came to KGU to have a talk show. It was all free so I wanted to go.

Piko is a fashion critic. She apears on TV very often. She's so funny when she's on variety shows. I like seeing famous people. We had to wait for about an hour till the hall was opened. It was chilly outside. Then we entered the place and waited for another 30 minutes inside. After 30 minutes, she finally showed up. She looked exactly same as on TV. I thought she was cool.

Although I thought she would talk about fashion since she's a fashion critic, she mainly talked about her life. She lost her sight of her right eye long time ago because of this difficult ill. It changed her. Her friends were very supportive for her and she thought she had to do something for others too after she recovered. She also said the important thing is not what you wear. She said the clothes are just decoration.

Her story was very interesting. I totally agreed with her. I think I want to do something to help other people. And no matter how beautiful clothes you wear, if you didn't have a good personality, it's not beautiful. And it's important to pick what you're good in. ［234 words］

Happy birth day

Yesterday was my friend's birthday so we had a little party tonight. She became 23 and she's one year older than me. She lives on her own so we gathered at her place. We actually wanted to do yesterday but she was busy with work. It was such a small party with 3 people but we three get together on and off and are very good friends.

After class, I went to KFC and bought fried chickens took them to the party. The other one brought cakes. They were really good. We toasted with non-alcohol wine since we had to drive after the party. We also had presents for her. I gave her a harmonica. Once she said she wanted it and I remembered that. She looked happy to receive it. The other friend gave her something interesting. It goes into the bath tub when you take a bath and it melts in the water. The water will be colored and smell good. I don't know what it's called in English but she looked happy to recieve that too.

After we ate, we watched TV together for a while and relax. At 11 pm we left her home. It was a small party but it was very fun. I like hanging out with my friends.
［216 words］

Book reviews "BABE: Pig in the City"

Babe is a clever pig which works as a shepherd. He is very famous in the country. The farm in which Babe and Mr and Mrs Hoggett lives was in danger because they had to pay money for the men from a bank and if they couldn't, they would have to sell the farm. One day, Mr. Hoggett got an offer from someone to show Babe's work at the party. They will pay a lot of money for that. To save the farm, Babe went to the city with Mrs. Hoggett.

Mrs. Hoggett was misunderstood that she was carrying the drung at the airport so she had to stay in the little room with a detective and missed the next plane. She and Babe couldn't get to the city they wanted to go.

They looked for a hotel and found the Flealands Hotel. In that hotel, many animals lived. They were abondoned animals. There were chimpanzees, dogs, cats, and monkeys. Nobody knew that they were there.

I thought it was a funny story. So many different animals and happenings. Baby is very cute. ［145 words］

One of my past time

When I have nothing to do and am bored, I have a thing I always do. It is called othello. I can play othello with my mobile phone. I just bought it 2 weeks ago. It's a great resource. I play it when I wait for my friend, or when I just don't have anything to do at home, or when I get bored in a class, or sometimes when I'm eating. Maybe I'm addicted to it. I at least play it 3 times a day.

My former mobile had tetris in it. I used to play it a lot when I'm free. I could keep playing it for like an hour. I was totally addicted to tetris. I was shocked when I had my former mobile broken because I couldnt play tetris anymore. But now I can play othello instead. It's fun to do so it's alright. ［148 words］

Book reviews "Give us the money"

Adam Grey works in a bank. He doesn’t like his job and doesn’t like Mr. Smith, his boss. One morning, Mrs. B tells Adam his horoscope. She says “Do something different today”. So Adam turns right at the corner he usually turns left. Suddenly, he sees something. A girl is being rubbed. He tackles the robber and runs with the girl. But it is actually a movie shooting.
At the same time, at the bank Adam works, real robbery is happening. They take bank’s money and run away. At a corner, they bump into Adam wand the girl. They mistake each other’s bags as theirs and don’t notice it. In Adam’s bag there is a lot of money, and the robber’s bag, there are pieces of news papers for movie shooting.
The robbers get angry and go to chase Adam. Adam and the girl run. The girl is an actress and she calls the movie director for help. The director goes rescue her and Adam with a camera. He shot the car chase of Adam and the robbers.
In the end, Adam and the girl are safe and police get the robbers. One of the robbers is surprisingly Adam’s boss, Mr. Smith. He goes to the bank but gets fired because he is late for work. But he is fine because the director asks him to star in his next movie. He will be a movie star.
[237 words]

My favorite store

I haven’t shopped lately but there is a favorite store I used to go often. Its name is Satisfaction and it’s located in Kengun. It’s a clothes store and has many good products. The most of the products there are imported especially from Europe. I really like their taste. It fits my style. Kengun is kind of far from my house which is about 30 minutes by car but I still used to go there to buy some clothes. However, I’ve been very poor these days so I haven’t only bought clothes but anything. [94 words]

Party

Last Saturday my highschool friends got together for a party. I hadn't seen them for a long time so it was very fun. One of our class mate held this get-together and he invited all the class mates but only 10 people out of 38 could make it. I still enjoyed it very much. One of our classmate has been engaged. She looked very happy. The other girl has moved to Osaka and been working there. There were 5 girls and 5 guys. All the girls are working and all the guys are still students. We went to Izakata on shimo-tori and stayed there for 3 hours. We talked a lot. We talked about our highschool lives, nowadays lives, and many other things. We were all drunk and felt happy. I'm looking forward to meeting them next time.

My favorite socks

When I work outside at night, I'm cold at first. As I move more I got less cold and warmer and warmer. However, my toes are always cold. No matter how much I move, my toes stay cold. I always didn't like that. One day I talked about it to my mother and a few days later she bought me a pair of socks. They are in different shape from what I usually where. They have 5 bags for every single toe. She said they keep it warm. I was suspicious at first. Besides when I wore them, it felt something was stuck between the toes so I didn't really like it. But I was wrong. During I was working today, my toes never got cold the whole time. I was so impressed. These socks are amazing. I have seen some people wear those socks including my mother and I sneered of them because they looked ridiculous and weird. They didn't look stylish to me. But now I realize weather it is stylish doesn't matter. I prefer to keep my toes warm. I thank someone who invented the socks and my mother who bought me them.
［196 words］

A letter from Perth

Today, when I got back home from school, I saw there was a big white envelope on the table in the kitchen. And it signed my name on it. I felt excited because I seldom receive any letters from anybody. I picked up the letter and checked whom it was from. I was really surprised when I saw the name on the back of the envelope. It was from my English teacher in junior high school. I haven't seen or heard from her for almost 7 years and suddenly got this letter.
The letter said that she now lives in Perth with her Australian husband for three years. I was glad to know that she still remembers me having had many many students after I graduated the junior high school. It's been already 7 years since after I graduated junior high school and it makes me feel old. Anyway, I'm going to have to write her back with some pictures. It was such a heartwarming surprise for me. The highlight of the day. [186 words]

Bookreviews "Escape"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.
First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.
[223 words]

I will talk about the summer vacation of mine. I almost had part time job. I work in cram school. I had hard work, and I was very tired. That is because I must work all days.
That is, I taught math to elementary student in morning , then, I taught it to junior high school student in after noon, finally, I taught it to high school student.
However, I had leisure time. I went to Tokyo using " Seishun 18 ticket " It cost me only about 1,2 sauthand yen to go there. The reason that I went there is that I want to meet my friends. I went to Izakaya Shinjyuku with my friend. I met him for the first time in the long time. We decided to go to Yokohama next day. When we saw it, we are very moved because it was very splendid and beautiful. Especially, I think the Yamashita Park is great. We can see many urban buildings, Yokohama bay, and Bay bridge. I want to go there again. [175 words]

About unknown words

When I read a text in a foreign language, I frequently come across words I do not understand. Sometimes I look up the word in a dictionary and sometimes I guess. It depends very much upon the degree of accuracy which you require and the time at my disposal. So I think so, I remember the talking which Prof. Kamimoto said to us in reading class.

If I tend to use the dictionary frequently, I should remember that all dictionaries have limitations and no definition is completely accurate. But I will get an accurate understanding of a word after seeing it in a variety of contexts, so it is good to read many books. Dictionaries which translate from English into Japanese and from Japanese into English are not as accurate as dictionaries which define words in their own language. So I should also consult an English-English dictionary, I think!!

And, in most exams I am not permitted to use a dictionary. Even if I am allowed to use one, it takes a lot of time, and time in exams is usually limited, so I am forced to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words.

There is no need to panic, however, because we can develop efficient methods to overcome such problems. Prof. Kamimoto showed two suggestions.
①- use contextual clues. The sentence and the story itself usually suggest possible meanings for individual wards.
②- The formation of the word itself may tell us a lot. If we look at the parts of the words, we may learn something about the whole words. For example: “ un “ means not, so any words beginning with “ un “ is likely to be a negative word.

We may also find it helpful to compare the unknown word with similar words in our language. [ 302 words ]

My Summer Memory

2 years ago, I went Malaysia with my friend Dimitri. Dimitri is a French man who lives in Tokyo. One day he invited me to join his journey to Southeast Asia. He lives in Tokyo and I live in Kumamoto, so we decided to meet at the airport Kuala Lumpur. I was very excited because I hadn’t seen him for a while. After we got together at the airport, we headed to Tioman Island. It took about 2 hours from the land by ship. It was a very small beautiful island. Many westerners were there to enjoy their vacations. We sunbathed and swam all day at the beach. The local people were very friendly so we made friends with them. We heard many stories about the island from them. We spent 2 nights there and went back to Kuala Lumpur. In Kuala Lumpur, we went to a temple, aquarium, shopping mall and club. We thoroughly enjoyed the metropolitan entertainments. This trip is one of my most memorable ones in my life. I really want to go back there again, but for Southeast Asian countries, I would also like to visit Thailand and Singapore. There are many places I want to go right now. I wish I were rich. ［208 words］

"Everything is Illuminated"

Today I watched a movie called “Everything is Illuminated”. I watched it for the Phonetic class. I’m going to have a presentation next week. I’m going to present about a different kind of English accent.

I picked this movie because there was a character who speaks English with a distinct accent. His name is Alexander. He’s a Ukrainian man and his English sounds a little funny. I focused on his pronunciation intensely so I don’t remember the story very much but it was a funny movie.

I’m going to get prepared for the presentation now. I’m going to use Power Point. I think I will do ok because the movie was really good. [113 words]

I want to go to Europe

I really want to visit Europe someday. Maybe I go there next year. I have a friend in Paris. He's a French guy but speaks Japanese fluently. I think I'm very luckey to be his friend because he says I'm always welcomed to stay at his place and he's gonna me around the city. I don't wanna visit only Paris but also visit other countries in Europe such as Italy, German, and Spain. The only problem is that I don't have money to get the airplane tickets. Why are planes so expensive? They should lower down the price immediately.

Creaning Day

I cleaned my room today. It my little dusty and messy before and now it's clean and I feel good. There is a custom to clean throuout the house or work or school before the new year starts in Japan. I cleaned throughout my room. The weather was perfect for cleaning.

First, I had my huton and blankets hang outside so that there was much more rooms in the room. I put away the things on the floor and used the vacuum cleaner. It didn't take so long because my room is pretty small. I like my room clean but it will be a mess soon again. ［107 words］

"The Squid and the Whale"

Today I was at school but I didn't have nothing to do . I was bored and didn't know what to do so I went to the library and watched a DVD. There are many DVDs you can watch at the library so I sometimes go there when I'm free.I watched the DVD of "The Squid and the Whale". This movie is about a divorce. In the beginning of the movie, parents of this family get divorce and the movie shows how the family deals with the divorce. The couple has 2 sons and they have to go back and forth their parents' houses because they decided to go joint custody. It might sounds like a depressing movie but it was somewhat casual. It takes up a serious issue but the movie itself wasn't so serious. So I thought it was good.I learned the word philistine from this movie.
[145 words]

The importance of lerning English

I have learned English this university. And, I have thinking about learning English.
I think that learning another language enables us to comunicate with people in a different contry and to learn more about their culuture. It also makes us realize the relativity of our own values. And I think we can realize that there are other ways of looking at reality and that there are other value systems in the world. This makes our experience of life more interesting. As we learn a new language, I think that we also discover more about our own language.

I think that speaking only one language is like living in a room with no windows or doors. It is safe, but it is dark and closed. So I think a foreign language brings new light into the room. With an elementaly knowledge, we can look out the window and see the world differently. With a deeper knowledge of the language, we can walk out of the door and explore the world in a new way. When we explore the world with a new language, we discover more of the magnificence that is in hte world. The discoveries we make add interest and wisdom to our life. So we can see that language studies can be the beginning of some wonderful adventures. So I will study English more and more from this. [229 words]

"BABE: Pig in the City"

I was free today. So I went to the library in this university. I read "BABE: Pig in the City". Did you read this book? Babe is a clever pig which works as a shepherd. He is very famous in the country. The farm in which Babe and Mr and Mrs Hoggett lives was in danger because they had to pay money for the men from a bank and if they couldn't, they would have to sell the farm. One day, Mr. Hoggett got an offer from someone to show Babe's work at the party. They will pay a lot of money for that. To save the farm, Babe went to the city with Mrs. Hoggett.

Mrs. Hoggett was misunderstood that she was carrying the drung at the airport so she had to stay in the little room with a detective and missed the next plane. She and Babe couldn't get to the city they wanted to go.

They looked for a hotel and found the Flealands Hotel. In that hotel, many animals lived. They were abondoned animals. There were chimpanzees, dogs, cats, and monkeys. Nobody knew that they were there.

I thought it was a funny story. So many different animals and happenings. Baby is very cute. ［165 words］

My community life

I have been working part time since I was 18 years old. And I can get connected with communities through working. I haven't been working at the same place all the time. I have changed my part-time job for a couple of times. I'm going to introduce what I have done.

First one, I was in highschool and about to graduate. I had been already finished with the entrance examination of the university and had a plenty of free time after school. So I decided to start, very first time in my life, woking. I chose to work at a restaurant in my neighborhood. It was a Korean restaurant. I was a waiter there. I had to talk and communicate with so many people in one day. I always have to be polite and carefle not to offend customers' feelings no matter how busy I was. It was sometimes very difficult because there were so many different kinds of people with different thoughts. Some people may be upset about things I will never be upset about. Some people could be very sensitive and picky while some people could be very friendly and generous. You have to make every customers satisfied by your service. That's what they said. At first I didn't understand this idea. But I eventually I learned that's about being professional. I worked at the restaurant for 3 years.

The next one, I started it when I was 20. I was still working at the first restaurant but I needed more money so I decided to have two part-time jobs. This one was a horse restaurant. It was located on Shimo-tori. Horse meat dish is onen of Kumamoto's specialities so many people from outside Kumamoto came to the restaurant. There were once costomers from Italy. They saw the home page of the restaurant and came Kumamoto to eat horse meat. They came there 2 nights straight. Horse meat is expensive. People came to the restaurant were rich. I had oppotunities to talk with such rich people and foreigners through this job. It was very interesting.

Now I work part time at a drugstore near my house. It is not restaurant so it is different from what I have done before. I have less opportunites to talk to the customers than the two jobs I had before. I sometimes feel it's boring. But I just started it so maybe I should stay and see for a while. [408 words]