Thursday, January 25, 2007
Congratulations and Thank You!
To all the students in my Communication Classes, congratulations on finishing the semester, and thank you for the pleasure of being your teacher. I was impressed by everyone's efforts this semester to improve your communication skills and, especially, to try a completely new challenge, using blogs in English. According to our class blogging survey, this was the first time any of you had written a blog in English. You did very well!
I will continue making entries in this blog over the break. I will start a new class blog next semester. I encourage all of you to continue using your blogs. I'm very impressed that Marie at Amami 5 has continued to use her blog to write English. When I start a new class blog, I will invite you to join us. You can then help the new students to understand how to use English-language blogs, and can continue to communicate in English together.
Have a great vacation!
I will continue making entries in this blog over the break. I will start a new class blog next semester. I encourage all of you to continue using your blogs. I'm very impressed that Marie at Amami 5 has continued to use her blog to write English. When I start a new class blog, I will invite you to join us. You can then help the new students to understand how to use English-language blogs, and can continue to communicate in English together.
Have a great vacation!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Coming of Age Day
Happy Coming-of-Age Day! What did you all do?
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Happy Late New Year
Happy New Year!
My new year's break has been peaceful and happy, for the most part. My wife and I visited her family for a New Year's lunch. We ate tons of osechi (and sushi and sashimi; there was also yakiniku, but I didn't eat any of that). My wife's uncle's family has a rabbit. I'm extremely allergic to rabbits, so within an hour, my nose was running like crazy. Other than that, I had a great time. The food was delicious and the people were interesting and friendly.
We also watched a few minutes of Kouhaku (the big New Year's Japanese song competition, which pits men against women), and also watched different parts of the world do New Year's countdowns on CNN.
Experiencing the New Year's holidays in Japan and watching other countries celebrate on TV, reminded me of how different Japan and the U.S. are in celebrating the New Year's holiday. For one thing, the New Year's holiday is much more important in Japan than in the U.S. In Japan, this holiday is filled with old traditions which have symbolic importance. For example, people carefully prepare osechi, eat toshikoshi soba, visit shrines and pray for good things in the New Year, etc. Young people look forward to nice cash gifts from their families and a lot of people still watch Kouhaku on TV (although this year, it wasn't very popular, I heard). In the U.S., people often spend New Year's eve at parties. The most important moment is the New Year's countdown, and the most important activity is drinking alcohol, especially champaigne (a huge number of police are on the streets during New Year's, to stop drunk drivers). There is also a popular idea that you should have a date on New Year's, and you should kiss your date at exactly 12:00 midnight (as is shown in the movie "When Harry Met Sally"--Japanese title: 恋人たちの予感; 見てみてください！).
I wish you all a peaceful and healthy 2007. See you soon!
John
P.S. nyo---n! I can't see your blog! Probably other people can't see it, either! I don't know the reason for the problem, but it's possible that you write something in kanji on the name of the your blog, or the name of an entry. This sometimes causes problems with Blogger. Please try to fix it. Thanks.
My new year's break has been peaceful and happy, for the most part. My wife and I visited her family for a New Year's lunch. We ate tons of osechi (and sushi and sashimi; there was also yakiniku, but I didn't eat any of that). My wife's uncle's family has a rabbit. I'm extremely allergic to rabbits, so within an hour, my nose was running like crazy. Other than that, I had a great time. The food was delicious and the people were interesting and friendly.
We also watched a few minutes of Kouhaku (the big New Year's Japanese song competition, which pits men against women), and also watched different parts of the world do New Year's countdowns on CNN.
Experiencing the New Year's holidays in Japan and watching other countries celebrate on TV, reminded me of how different Japan and the U.S. are in celebrating the New Year's holiday. For one thing, the New Year's holiday is much more important in Japan than in the U.S. In Japan, this holiday is filled with old traditions which have symbolic importance. For example, people carefully prepare osechi, eat toshikoshi soba, visit shrines and pray for good things in the New Year, etc. Young people look forward to nice cash gifts from their families and a lot of people still watch Kouhaku on TV (although this year, it wasn't very popular, I heard). In the U.S., people often spend New Year's eve at parties. The most important moment is the New Year's countdown, and the most important activity is drinking alcohol, especially champaigne (a huge number of police are on the streets during New Year's, to stop drunk drivers). There is also a popular idea that you should have a date on New Year's, and you should kiss your date at exactly 12:00 midnight (as is shown in the movie "When Harry Met Sally"--Japanese title: 恋人たちの予感; 見てみてください！).
I wish you all a peaceful and healthy 2007. See you soon!
John
P.S. nyo---n! I can't see your blog! Probably other people can't see it, either! I don't know the reason for the problem, but it's possible that you write something in kanji on the name of the your blog, or the name of an entry. This sometimes causes problems with Blogger. Please try to fix it. Thanks.
