ART....

When I think about an art or music or something, one song came up.

It is a Japanese pop, and it is a little bit old. But very famous!
The singer is "Mr. children". I don't know what the meaning is.
And my favorite song is " never ending trip".

The song sing about people who try to someting hard. It is a kind of cheerhul song.

"if there is a higher wall, you can feel much better when you reach the top.
Not now, it is not your limit"

When I came to Iowa City and I had a terrible time becuase of English, I always listened this music on the Cambus.
The song made me try, try, try....

I don't know I did better, but it is still my favorite song!!

Night Music♪

When I backed Japan during winter vacation, Father took me a jazz bar.
It was my first time going such as fationable place. It was sooooo good!!
Because I can play the piano and the trumpet, I'm interested in jazz music.

And then, I found a bar which people play music in front of people. My friends recomended it so we went there.
I can not remenber the ber name, but it's near the US bank.

I had never been there, but I know the bar.

There is a basement, and it is used for a band.
When I went there, a famous band played music. (I forgot the band name...:'<)
My friend and I just stayed at table and talked, but some people danced with the music.

Jazz music can't make people crazy like SUMMIT.
But I felt ...how can i say.. more adult.

When I was ten...

I was 4th student in a elementary school student.
I had a long hair and I always played outside with my friends.

I have one big memory.
My teacher liked a thrity one-legged race. And one TV problem had a tournament.
We practiced during a summer vacation and I used a lot of time for practicing.
We won the first game, but in the next time, we could not pass the game..

But I could get a special memory and great relationship with my classmates!

TRIP

Travel is one of my hobby!!

The memorable trip is ...my first trip for oversea.
When I was a freshman in my university, I went to Singapore with two friends, who were from same high school.
Except one friend, my friend and I had never been to other countries.
So I had to buy a suitcase and some goods for travel.
The most difficult thing was getting my parents' agreement....
At first time, my parents' did not allow me to go becasue of dangeous.
But I could get their agreement finally!!!!!

In Singapore, we were in a tour.
We went to the casino, the famous park, the statu of sea-lion, and...
It was a great time!!!

After going to Singapore, we go to foreign countris every big vacation, like summer or spring.
We went to Korea and now we are planning to go to Thailand this summer!!

RECIPE

Well, one of my favorite Japanese food is OKONOMIYAKI.
If i can say it in English, it is like a Pizza.
But the taste is more Japanese. I mean not cheese taste.

How To Make "Okonomiyaki"(お好み焼き）

1: cut a half of cabbage
2: mix flour and water to be like a paste
3: add 1 to 2 and red ginger, green onion and mix them
4: pour 3 on a heated big pen, making a big circle
5: on the 4, put some sliced pork
6: burn both side
7: after burned, put the souce on it.
8: put green laver if you want

That's it!!!
It is famous in Osaka, Japan!!!

MY FAMILY

This time, I will talk about one of my family member, Barye.
Maybe some people who is in the class talked about human, but Barye is my sweet pet.

She is a Jack　Russell　Terrier, and her age is 3 years old.
She came my home as a my birthday present.
Before I got her, we had one dog, Shopan. But she died.
From it, we felt so sad all day...
So we decided to have a new family member.

Do you know a Jack Russell Terrier's character? She is so active and so fast to move!!
Moreover, she always plays some tricks. My mother and I always tried to let her be a good.

She is a smart.
She could remember some tricks which I tought her.
One of them is "INOKI".
INOKI is a person name, he is a famous in Japan. the most famous things of him is his lower jaw.
So when I say "INOKI" to her and reach my hand to under her face, she puts her lower jaw to my hand!!
It means nothing, but SOOOO cute!!

I really miss her now.
Because she is my little sister!!

Iowa City!!!

Through the 1st semester, I noticed the like points of Iowa City.

My favorite things is the mood of people, park, place and shops.
Everything in Iowa City are soooo big. The City park is sooooo big.

When I back to the Mayflower by work in fall, I always watched the view of river side. It was beautiful! Because trees turned coulor to the red and sun was going to down to the river! I love the view!!!

But now, it changed because of snow... I could not back the doom by work...
But I like snow! so I don't care about snow!!!!
I don't like cold weather, though......

two home towns

I have two home towns.
One is Nagoya in Japan, another is Iowa in America.

I was born in Tokyo in Japan, and moved to Nagoya,which is middle in Japan when I was an elemental student. After that, I moved to Toyohashi, which is in the same prefecture with Nagoya, and I moved to Nagoya again.

So I can say that my hometown is Nagoya.
I like Nagoya because Nagoya is a thrid biggest city in Japan. Therefore, I can buy everything what I want. Moreover, I can go everywhere using subways or buses.

Hummm.... I dislike my hometown because people don't friendly like people who live in Iowa City. People smile at me when I walk on the street. But in Japan, if I smiled at other people in the same situation, they don't tend to smile....


My present hometown, Iowa City, is goooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Before I came here, I did'nt eat a Mexican food. But now, I love a brito!!
I think people are very friendly and I like my doom, Mayflower. Because I have a lot of friends there.

But...acually,I dislike the Iowa weather.
My hometown has few snow in one year. So I was suprised when the first snow fell!!! It was so early, I thought.

I decided to buy more clothes because I'll stay here more one semester!!!!!

APPOSITIVE

When I was a high school student, my English teacher tought us about appositive using a lot of time, because it was hard for students to understand well.

APPOSITIVE is used to mention a particular person/thing using extra imformation after","

Now, here is an example:non-restrictive
I have roommates, who learns Arabic.

In this sentence, "learn Arabic" is extra imformation about MY roommates. Without it, we can not know who my roommate is. The sentence can show that ALL roommate are studying Arabic.


an example:restrictive
My roommates who learn Arabic.

In this sentence, the meaning can show that there may be roommates, who don't study Arabic, because the sentence" who learn Arabic" didn't modifire "My roommate".

another example:restrictive
My father sitting on the chair is very kind.

In this sentence, the meaning is that I may have another fater besides the man, who is sitting on the chair.

Thus, it is different between Restrictive and non-Restrictive

NEW WORDS!!!

Mayflower I live in has many funny person.
There are Chinese, Korean, French, Thai, Taiwanese....

Today, I'll talk about a black man, who is storng, big, clever.

Because he is a black person, he always use Black English.
The most famous greeting of black English is "what's up?". But he didn't use it. Instead of it, he used

"Do you wanna dispute, man??"

I'm not sure that he used it for greeting words, but I thought that it was used in the same situation of "what's up?"


I thought the slang which the dictionary doesn't have are very intersting!!!

This picture was in a Halloween Party

Wedding

Congratulatioooooooooooooooooooon!Niki!!!!!


I studied what the traditional Japanese wedding is before, because it was my speech theme in my university.


Japanese traditional wedding is Shinto Wedding, which is taken place in a shrine and a groom and bridegroom wear a Kimono. There are no cake no champagne no dance.


Now, almost weddings are like west, it means that we wear a wedding dress, cutting a cake and it take place in a church.
Japan separates 2 parts, one is cheap wedding ceremony and another is expensive one.
Average costs is $26,000. I don't know it is more expensibe or not than American.

I think one differnce thing between American and Japanese is a groom and a brigegroom wear 3 or more dresses, such as wedding dress, Kimono, evening dress...


Well, if I would have a wedding ceremony, I want a night wedding or a gardan party.
Are there night weddings in America?? In Japna some hotels have a plan. It takes in the night, of cause, and pray the forever love under the moon. It's great!!
I wonder when it dream come ture....

JAPANESE style

There are a lot of differences between English and Japanese.

As you can see, a first differenc is a character. Japaneses has 3 characters, which I wrote on the last week's blog. So Japanese can creat more words than using alphabet.

Second difference is about grammar.
English form is that Subject + ver + predicative
But Japanese is moslty different.
For example: お昼ご飯を食べる。( I eat lunch.)
お昼ご飯 is a lunch
食べる is eating
so Japanese form is Subject + predicative + verb.

And in negative sentence, a negative verb is placed in the end of the sentence.
For example: お昼ご飯を食べない。( I don't eat lunch.)
ない is not.
So you cna't understand what Japanese speaker want to say if you don't listen to a end.

Last difference is pronunciation.
Some asian language has similar pronunciations to English, such as Korean and Chinese. But Japanese doesn't.
Japaneses doesn't have a "th-", "q-,-q", "sh" etc. So many Japanese people have a difficult time to learn English pronunciation.
In my case, I didn't understand the difference between "L" and "R".
Still now, I have faced the difficult time to learn speaking English and listening skill.

JAPANESE

My first language is Japanese, you know.
And I studied Chinese in my university in Japan. My university is the Nagoya University Of Foreign Studies, so every students study some language. For example, one of my friends learns Spanish, another friend learns German, and I have friends who study French or korean.

I think in the UI there are many students who are learning Japanese. S0 I helped them to attend the Japanese class as a guest speaker of Japanese, and I belong to the JCA-Japanese culture association.
At that time, I think about Japanese suddenly.
Japanese has 3 characters of writing, kanzi漢字, hiraganaひらがな and katakanaカタカナ

kanzi is the similar form to Chinese. So when I learned Chinese, I could understand what a textbook in Chinese wants to say, but the pronunciation is difficult!!!!
Hiragana and Katakana are the original language forms of Japanese.
What I wanted to say in today's blog was Japanese has 3 writing patterns. I don't know any language which have some characters for writing. I think it is interesting.

In Japanese,if you don't know a word spell, you can write another form from 3 characters.

CHICAGO

I spent a great time in Chicago!
I could make a memory which I had never had.
I'll tell you about one great thing of Chicago.

It's...PIZZA!
I heard Chicago's pizza is very famous and very delicious from my friend's sister, who lived in Iowa City before, so my friend mailed to her which pizza shop is the best. Her answer was "UNO"
Do you know UNO? I didn't know, but I rereaded the guide book, there was the name.
The book said it was the most famous, so you might wait 4 hours after order.
But we tried!!!

It was sooooo delicious!!!
Uno's pizza was different from my imagination, because the dough of pizza was like pie dough. I mean it was short. Also, needless to say, it was sooooo big!
I became a fan of UNO. I wonder UNO is made in Japan.

Oh! I forgot to write about my funny experience in Chicago!
When I was walking to the bus stop, I saw 3 or 4 men who were sitting on the bench and looking at us. I noticed their eyes, so I watched them. Then one of them said "Hi", so we repeated, and keep walking. They were saying something after that, but we didn't say any more, then someone shouted...




"Chicken Teriyaki!!!"



How did they know we are Japanese?? :-)

eating!!!

I'm good at eating!
Italian, Chinese, Korean, Mexican are good!! Recentry I'm crazy about Indian curry, so I'm looking for the best Indian curry restaurant.
But I love sweets!!!
Cakes, cookies, chocolate, ice cream, Japanese snacks are very good!! I want to eat a sweet thing whenever I want to eat, I started to cook by myself.
When I was child, I often used to cook something with my mother in rainy days.
My mother likes cooking some sweets, so on my birthday, christmasn day or some special days mom cooked me something.
When I was a high school student, I cooked sweets by myselfe for christmas, mom's birthday, St. Valentain's Day instead of mom.
So I became a good cooker of sweets :>

My special is a cheese cake. I recomend you to cook cheese cake because it is very easy to cook, moreover it's very delicious!!!!
I'm sure that if you cook it for someone, he or she says "Yummy!!" to you!

Using this skill, what I want to do in the future is cooking for my children.
My dream is that when children come back home from school, I'm in a home and cooking for them.
So I should learn how to cook many kind of sweets.

the nature of universe

I chose about the black hole as the H.W topic.




“Black hole”
When I was a junior high school student, my science teacher told me about a black hole. Until then, I was interested in a black hole.

A black hole is a star which affects a very strong gravitation to everything around the black hole, even light. It is thought that it was made by contracting a huge gas cloud, and the size is bigger and bigger nowadays. The research about a black hole has kept; however, any scientists can’t observe it directly. But in the universe, it is thought that there is a super-massive black hole which is the biggest one, and also it is said that the white hole exists in the universe.
The black hole can be a role that sucks everything around it into itself. By contraries the role of white hole is getting out everything that was sucked by the black hole.

So it means that if there were the black hole and the white hole in the earth, we could travel in the twinkling of an eye!!!!!
I wish the day came true by the time I will die.

Sept 11

THE SENTENCE: I've been buying all these old D-battery-powered video games from the '80s. (Adams 2007)

EXPLANATION: The sentence means that "I" keep buying still now. I mean "I" bought first D-battery-powered video games in 80's.
It is said the past perfect progress.

E.G:
A: How many old D-battery-powered video games?
B: I can't count!!! Becaues too many!
A: Do you like these when you were a child?
B: Yeah, I've been buying all these old D-battery-powered video games from the '80s.