The third Koizumi Cabinet's inauguration

The third Koizumi Cabinet was inaugurated. There was no "Surprised appointment" this time.

Ms. Kuniko Inoguchi who is one of the "Koizumi-children" became a Cabinet member despite newly-elected Representative. It's unusual that a newly-elected Representative gets into the Cabinet member but I think she will do well. Her careers are excellent!
I like her because she is very humble. She doesn't boast of her careers, unlike Ms. Satsuki Katayama.

Tokyo govt plans to redevelop my area.

According to newspaper, the Tokyo metropolitan government has been working on a 1 trillion* yen plan to redevelop Yoyogi Park and its surrounding areas as the main venue for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. I live near Yoyogi Park. It's my area!

I always find the opening ceremonies of the Olympics very inspiring. I want to go to see it once at least. If it is in Tokyo, it's best! I want Tokyo to win the race to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Before that, Tokyo must defeat Sapporo and Fukuoka. Go for it, Tokyo!!

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*trillion
I didn't know but according to a dictionary, one trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 in U.S.
But it's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 in U.K.
British and American English are sometimes different. But figures difference confuses.
I wonder which language is used in International community and business.

Anger

Child abuse in Turkey was reported in the news today. Staffs abused children in the orphanage. Staffs abuse children on a daily basis for a long time, over 19 years. One person who knows the fact of the child abuse took abusing scenes with a hidden camera. Terrible. Really terrible. I can never forgive them. 7 staffs who were all women were arrested. But it is the tip of iceberg. Many children are plagued by abuse as well as war, poor, disaster and so on.

How can we protect children from these things?

I have a cold.

It gets colder recently and a cold is going around. Finally I caught a cold. I wonder it is due to riding bicycle. My throat is weakest in my body, so I have a sore throat first when I have a cold. My sore throat is terrible so I sometimes can't sleep well.
(I've heard that meaning of "throat" includes "pharyngeal tube" and "air tube". By the way, my pharyngeal tube and air tube have a very healthy constitution.)
After sore throat, I have a cold.

Although I have a cold, I went to Jazz party with my friend tonight. It wasn't fun so much. I should have stayed at home and slept.

My bicycle life

Good morning!
It was sunny days till yesterday in Tokyo. I like autumn fine weather!

One of my goals is that I will still stay healthy, even at old age. I've heard that riding bicycle is better than running and walking. I can train an iliopsoas muscle and promote blood flow by riding a bicycle over 150 hours a week.

I live in Shibuya Ward so my place isn't so far from Shibuya station. Actually Shinjuku station is nearer than Shibuya station. I can walk to Shinjuku. When I go to Shinjuku and Shibuya, I will bicycle to there now.
(Both Shinjuku and Shibuya is one of biggest station of central Tokyo.)

When I rode my bicycle yesterday, there was a strange sound.
My skirt tore... Oh, no!
It was my favorite clothes.




(<--- My torn skirt)

I love sleeping!!!

I was asleep all day today. ALL DAY. I really like sleeping. If someone ask me my happiest time, I would answer "It's when I'm sleeping" without question. Believe it or not, I can sleep for 24 hours. It's very lazy life and I waste my time. I know well. But it's blissful moment!!

By the way, I wonder "be asleep" and "sleep" are same meaning. In this case, using adjective is a bit strange for Japanese. So I can understand "sleep" more smoothly.

My new machine!

Finally I bought a bicycle! I wanted a cool one, like sports type. But those were expensive. As you can see, it's the normal and nondescript bicycle. It's nothing to put its photo. BUT! I put it in this blog because I'm very happy!


I rode a bicycle after very long time and it was reminded me that I was very poor at riding a bicycle. Dangerous.

Playoff is...

Lotte won the first league title in the past 31 years.
(This article is about Japanese professional baseball.)

I'm a fan of Giants. But I like Lotte. BUT! Actually I wanted Softbank to win. Softbank was a runaway leader in the pennant race. I think playoff system is very strange and it should be abolished. It's true that playoff games warm up but it's disadvantage for the team that is a leader in the pennant race. The leader team must wait no less than two weeks to play the games because 2nd team and 3rd team play the games at first.
It is also strange that 3rd team can play in playoff.

Although Softbank was a leader in pennant race for the second consecutive year, it lost the league title for the second consecutive year.

Anyway, Japan series will start this weekend. Lotte vs Hanshin. I intend to cheer Lotte. Go in and win for Softbank that lost the title!

My goals on the future chronology

Yesterday was my birthday and I set up goals and made my future chronology.

I set up some goals. Of course one of them is "English". I will score over 900 on TOEIC exam in 3 years. (Oh! You think it's impossible now, don't you?)

Another is that I will do activities to help poor children in the world. At the present time, I do something I can do a little by little. I hope I will do the activities worldwide in the future.

There are many poor people in the world. Especially I'd like to help children.
For example, street children. One Filipino girl works in dump all day and get small changes. They can eat lean meals only every 3days.
For example, children who are in the battlefields, children who are in the disaster areas, children who are in the poorest countries.
When they play with their friends, they really enjoy a good laugh, although they are in the harsh situation. When I see their smile, I feel near tears. They can't go to school but they have strong desire to study. So I'd like to do activities to make situation that children can go to school. I think foods are needed before education though.

#=#=# According to a book "If the world were a village of 100 people". #=#=#

If you have money in the bank, money in your wallet and spare change somewhere around the house, you are among the richest 8.

Among the villagers,
1 has a college education, 2 have computers, 14 cannot read.
#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#=#

I have money in the bank, in my wallet. I had gone to university. I have my computer.
And these are things most Japanese take for granted. But these are very very rare things in the world. I must be thankful for my situation.

Happy Birthday!!

Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me!!

I intend to present me a bicycle. I wanted to buy it and put its photo on this article. But it rain today. I intend to come back to my place from bicycle shop riding the bicycle. I will buy it by the end of this week. And I will put my new machine's photo on this blog!

Word order

I got together with two high school friends today. We had played handball and did hard trainings everyday.

They are fans of Korean actors so they went to watch the Korean movie. The huge boom in Korea is happening among Japanese women. (Especially women in middle life.) I'm not interested in those at all so I joined them after they watched the movie.

One of them had lived in Korea for a while so she can speak Korean. It's often said that Korean is similar Japanese very much so it's easy to learn Korean for Japanese. Especially Korean has a similar word order to Japanese. Japanese word order is much different from English.

For example...

"I went to the park with my friend this morning.

"Japanese word order is

"This morning with my friend to the park went." (Japanese usually omit the subject.)

It's MUCH different, isn't it?

Rain, rain, rain...

It rain in Tokyo recently. We haven't seen the Sun for a while.

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is typhoon season. And there is a lot of rain in the early autumn. And then, clear autumn sky ("akibare" in Japanese) is continued... But akibare I love haven't come yet.

I miss akibare.

Photographer's heart

The damage of tremendous powerful earthquake that hit Pakistan was terrible. I've heard that Pakistan is earthquake-prone area, but most houses aren't quakeproof structures unlike Japan.

One day I was watching the news about the earthquake in Pakistan. Camera was capturing local residents who were trying to dig a person from rubble. There was no heavy equipment so they did by human power. Then one of them said to the cameraman, "we are trying to rescue a person so help us". I thought HE WAS RIGHT!! The cameraman was capturing them up close.

Sometimes photographers take pictures in the battlefields and their photos win the awards. They go to many battlefields with justification that their mission is to show people terrible battlefields situations. But I always think why they don't help people in front of them before pressing shutter button. They might help them after pressing shutter button. But if they have normal human heats...

I often watch movies and documentaries about war and I want many people to watch those to realize horrors of wars. But when I see photos in the battlefields, I always think I can't understand the feeling of the photographer who can press shutter button before helping people, like the cameraman who was in Pakistan.
I'm contradicting myself...

Playing Mozart on the piano

I downloaded and listened the music of my friend who is a DJ/beat maker. (I am not familiar with his music though.) Listening his music, I realized that I rarely put on any music in my usual life.

I've heard that Mozart is very good for health, beauty and healing. It seems that it is demonstrated scientifically. So I'm thinking about putting on Mozart usually. At first I thought I borrow CD's from a rental shop.

I used to play piano. But I haven't played it for a long time and I always think I want to play it again. But my piano is at my parent home and my place is too small to put a piano.
Do you know sheet-like piano? At first I couldn't believe it. But one pianist said that sound of it is good. So I plan to buy it. I think it's a good idea that I play Mozart on the piano myself.
After improving my piano skill much, I want a real piano.

My terrible listening skill

I went to drink with my English teacher tonight. At first we drank at British bar in Shinjuku.

He speaks easy English slowly in class. But today wasn't lesson of course. So I often couldn't catch what he said. My listening skill is really bad. Probably he usually speaks faster and uses more difficult words.

Most foreigners who study Japanese have good listening skill, even if they can't speak, write and read Japanese so much. My writing and reading are much better than listening. What is difference?

After drinking at the bar, we went to the Kaiten Sushi restaurant. We went to there late so most my favorite neta(*) were sold out. It was pity.

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(*) Neta means sashimi on the rice. It's one of sushi-related words.

Find a nice spot

I went to drink with my friend and I just came home.We went to bar MUSE in Nishi-Azabu. I have heard it was good so I was looking forward to going there. But hmm... it wasn't good so much. We left there soon and went to others. At first we tried to go to bar HEATLAND in Roppongi Hills. But it was too crowded. There were many people (almost foreigners) even out of the bar. So we went to anther bar CURTAIN CALL in Roppongi Hills. We went there for the first time and we liked it. Its atmosphere was very good. We talked about coming again sometime. We found a nice spot!

It's good to go to anywhere new. Sometimes I can find good places.

English that is easy to catch

I sometimes watch news and foreign dramas in English to learn English, I almost can't catch what they say though. My biggest weakness is listening. I hope I'll be able to understand all English in news and dramas sometime.

But it depends on dramas. For example, U.S. dramas "Twenty Four" and "Star Trek". I can catch what actors say in these dramas better than in other dramas. Their English is very clear for me. Why... Director's policy?

English that is easiest to catch is U.S. president's speech!

Tatsunori Hara came back!

It was decided that Mr. Hara would assume manager of Giants again after 3 years of separation. (Giants is one of Japanese professional baseball teams. I am a fan.) It's nice! It's better to say it's quite expected. I was really angry at stupid high command of Giants when they retired him. And then poor performance of Giants continued.

I think it's hard to bring the team back from the grave. Hara's role is tough. But go for it!

The way to teach

Today was my English lesson day at the school. (Every Wednesday)My teacher Enrique had a cold so another teacher Michael taught me today. Michael is a principal. (An owner of the school) Both of them are Canadian.

Their ways to teach are different. Both of them are good teacher.

I think that the way of teach should depend on teachers. I'm a computer trainer and I always think teachers and trainers should make a lot of effort to develop better way to teach and have own way. So I think teacher who doesn't have own way to teach and just copy other's way isn't qualified to teach.

I can't read English fast!

I sent my friend an e-card. When I send e-cards, I use Japanese greeting website of course. But the friend I sent this time is a foreigner so I searched English site and sent from it.

There were many e-cards and I checked a few contents of them. There was one problem in some of them...English sentences or words appear on display and then they disappear soon. I couldn't read them! Because it takes much time to read English than to read Japanese. It made me remember my driving in U.S.

I went to Texas for business trip a few years ago.As soon as I arrived at Dallas airport, I rent a car there, and drove to the hotel. Of curse I didn't know the road of Texas at all so I read traffic signs carefully when I drove on the freeway. But I couldn't read English very fast so I usually passed by the traffic signs before I read. Usually people don't read the traffic sign, just look, right? I also don't read Japanese traffic sign. I can understand it by just looking. But I can't understand English by just looking. I need to read.

I found myself driving 40km per hour on the freeway...

Remarkable proficiency in crossword puzzle?

Percentage of cells I could fill correctly is following.

1st trying --- 8%
Terrible. Even elementary students in U.S. can fill cells more...

2nd trying --- 16%
Hmm... It's difficult.

3rd trying --- 22%
Favorable growth. I seem to get the knack of English crossword puzzle. Keep it up.

4th trying --- 54%
Wow! Steep increase! Am I a genius? I can meet the goal (80%) soon?

5th trying --- 10%
Oh... thought as much. 4th was pure luck. It's not that easy.
Language improves little by little.