Golden Week

Hi, ladies!!
It has been a warm and comfortable today, and Golden Week has already started. Will you have a nice plan during the week? I hope all of you are enjoying a wonderful holiday.

My husband is going to take a day off tomorrow, and we’re planning on going to the movies. At first, he seemed to be reluctant to go, because he doesn’t like a place where many people gather, and prefers to spend holidays just sitting around at home. But while I kept saying that we’d better to try something good, he accepted with bad grace.

Then I asked him what kind of movies he wanted, but he had no idea. So, I gave him a choice between okuribito and Slum dog millionaire, both of which got an academy award this spring. He was concerned about its too serious story, and hesitated for a while. Oh, he really likes an entertainment…

After all I decided to watch Slum dog…, and made a reservation at the　
Miyoshi Movix Theater, which is the closest from my house. I'm looking forward to
watching it.

So, see you next. Have a nice holiday!

At a shopping center

Hi, ladies!!

Last Sunday, I went shopping to a big shopping center with my daughters, while my husband was in Tokyo on a business trip. There were a lot of people as usual, walking around in the large space. When I was young, I didn’t mind such crowds and shops at all. But I've been getting older and at that time, I wanted to move away from the shop as soon as possible, because I felt very tired. So I was sitting a chair at an open space, waiting my daughters choose their favorites at a nearby variety shop.

They like that kind of shops very much and it often takes one hour or so to decide what to buy. There are a lot of sweet, cute and colorful goods at the shops, and it might be the best time for girls, I know. But I was weary with waiting and almost dozed off. It was not until they touched me that I noticed them come back. I should have read in a bookstore instead of sleeping…

Well, it’s time to prepare for supper. See you!

A new pandemic?

Hi, ladies!!

Gloriosa, your idea about our present at the Victorian tutorial might be rational for us, and we have to discuss how to pay one’s share.

Alice, I wanted to listen to Plum’s lecture about freedom and equality. I don’t think women have their freedom and equality, and I hope more women can express their own wishes easily to achieve the rights.

An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and the US is causing a big concern in Japan. The number of death from the flu has been rapidly increasing in Mexico, and we fear a new flu pandemic around the world…What I can do now is to prepare for foods and daily necessities.

So, see you next. Bye!

A silicone steamer

Hi, ladies!!

These days I am trying to improve the efficiency of cooking in order to have enough time to learn English. One day I came into a good idea that I could use my microwave more, and was looking for a kind of steamer available in it for a while. Then I happened to see a good one on a blog, which appeared to be very convenient for me. After taking a look on the Net, I found it had become popular as the newest type of silicone steamer. But I hesitated to get it at once because of its high price.

Few days ago, I was having lunch while watching TV, when a famous musician began to talk about his cooking on a very popular program at noon. He was introducing some kitchen tools as his favorite, and then explained a certain steamer… Oh, that’s it! It was one I found on the Net. He said that it was good for everyone to have a lot of vegetables in an easy and healthy way.

Then, I decided to buy it, and went to the site. But strangely, the advertisement disappeared both on the blog and the shopping area: It seemed that they had a rush of orders due to the program, or another media.
I am now really disappointed…I want to get it someday, somehow.

So, have a nice Thursday afternoon, Bye!!

The death penalty

HI, ladies!!

Alice, your story on the Swiss Alps was so impressive that I tried to imagine those breathtaking sceneries. We’d like to see and feel where Plum has already reached, wouldn’t we??

Today’s news/
The Supreme Court upheld the death penalty handed down by lower courts on Masumi Hayashi, dismissing her not-guilty appeal.

Causing indiscriminate mass casualties by lacing food with poison was extremely malicious, contemptible and cruel. The court had no choice but to accept a death sentence because the incident had a great impact on society.
A key issue was the weight given to circumstantial evidence.

…It’s also a controversial issue. If I were the position of a judge, or of a victim’s family member, what could I do?

Well, see you later, bye!

Organ transplant donors

Hi, ladies!
It has been raining on and off, and the temperature is lower than yesterday.

From the national news/
The government and the opposition party agreed to drop age limit for organ transplant donors. They hope to abolish the current age limits on being an organ donor, but also plan to more strictly define brain death.

The current law stipulates that only those aged 15 or older can become organ donors. One plan seeks to allow organ donations from babies less than 12 months old if family members agree. Another calls for the age limit to be lowered to 12 or older, while the third bill would leave the age limit unchanged.

…It’s a controversial subject, because there seem some serious problems on international organ traffic. I am worried that Japan will become a target of that crime if the law is revised in the near future.

Well, see you tomorrow. Good bye!

HI, ladies!!

I received valuable ideas from Gloriosa’s proposal this morning. (Please see her comment on the last) I want to take time to think about it…
Yestersay’s Victorian tutorial was so impressive for me, and I thought I am a lucky woman who has gotten this golden opportunity. The best thing I can do is to improve my English even little by little.

So, see you next. Bye!

For the STEP

HI, ladies!!

Today the lecture for the STEP test restarted at Cosmos’s home, under Alice’s guidance for the first time in 3 months, and the participants were Cosmos, Peach, Rose and me. Thanks to Alice’s kind advice, all of us learned a lot and enjoyed them. But I felt my poor brain didn’t work, because I haven’t taken such intensive English lesson for a long time.

…Today’s exercises…

My husband: Haruka is not looking well these days. Is she okay?
Me: Apparently, she isn’t sleeping well just now, although she usually sleeps really soundly.
H: Sounds like something is worrying her.
M: Well, that’s part of the problem. You know that she takes lessons on the piano, don’t you?
H: Yes, ever since she left Osaka.
M: That’s right. Well, at the moment she is joining the tennis club at her junior high, so she plays tennis a lot every day, which takes a couple of hours each day. And on the top of that, she is suffering from lack of time for practicing the piano and has difficulty playing it.

So, see you next. Have a nice weekend!

Bushido

Hi, ladies!!

When April began, a lot of new programs started on TV or the radio, and I have tried to watch some English study programs. Trad Japan is one of them that inspired me with its fresh concept. On it, the Japanese commentator strongly argued that Japanese people should express our thoughts and ideas more by ourselves in English, because this was highly significant not only for a good introduction to the world, but also for worthy of speaking itself.

He also introduced the words of Inazo Nitobe in his book Bushido, saying that Japanese people have an advantage in speaking English as a defendant, while native speakers just speak as a lawyer. This is a nice simile, isn’t it? I want to read Bushido.

So, see you next. Good bye!

Sakanoueno kumo

HI, ladies!

These days I am interested in the actor Masahiro Motoki, as I wrote about it before, since I had been impressed by the touching movie Okuribito. The other day, I happened to see a making video on TV, which was produced for publicity of the coming drama Sakano ueno kumo written by Ryotaro Shiba. He is going to act as Saneyuki Akiyama, the leading role in it.

Since I began to learn and write on the Meiji period and the Victorian age about two years ago, I have wanted to get a broader knowledge of the subject, especially in the Nisshin and Nichiro senso. Though both wars had a profound impact on Japan, I can neither understand nor imagine the situation at all. So, this drama will give me a good opportunity to learn the history. Now I’m looking forward to watch the drama on this winter.

So, see you later, have a good Monday night...

Beautiful flowers

Hi, ladies!
It has been another unseasonable warm day and I can hear a lot of children playing outside through the window.

Thank you for your kind words to my daughter. She is getting used to her new environment and trying to make new friends at school.

Spring is a season you can enjoy beautiful flowers everywhere. My tiny veranda garden will soon become a nice place, because my daughters are eager to make fantastic flower bed there. I dream that at the veranda I sit down on a chair gracefully, enjoying a cup of tea, even beside a lot of washing…

Well. See you next. Have a nice weekend!

In translation

HI, ladies!!

It has been hot today… How are you?

This morning I drove to the Josei kaikan to borrow some books on Kiyoko Endo, whom I am trying to learn for this year’s essay writing. Though I couldn’t get any materials written by herself, there were several biographies, which seemed to be very intriguing for me. While searching other books at the library, I happened to see the newsletter of Gender Studies of Aichi Shukutoku Univ. As I leafed through it, there was a familiar name, who have greatly helped us in writing essays, on it: Dr B.

She wrote “Tongues and bodies in translation: what a title can tell us” in English, and its Japanese translation was also printed below, “Honyakuni okeru kotobato karada: daimeino jitsurei”. This title looks engaging, isn’t it?

Her comment was difficult for me to understand, because I think I had no knowledge about the background. But I was happy to know what she was making a study.

So, it’s time to wrap this up. See you!

The new term

Hi, ladies!!

What a warm climate today and I can see petals of cherry blossoms falling in the wind along the street. Those short-lived flowers fascinate us every spring, don’t they?

At last the new term has begun, and this morning I attended the entrance ceremony of the junior high with my older daughter. When we got to school, there were a lot of new students gathering at the entrance, and so we also stood in line to take photos at the signboard. My daughter wearing new uniform seemed to feel nervous in the presence of unfamiliar classmates.

I can feel refreshed at the beginning of the new fiscal year and restart to learn English intensively tomorrow.

So, see you next. Bye for now.

Cherry blossoms

HI, ladies!

April has already begun, but it is another windy and chilly day today. I can see a lot of cherry blossoms along the street, half in blooming from the veranda of my house, and I’m looking forward to viewing the beautiful flower in full bloom. Those trees are along the steep slope called sakurazaka. I normally don’t like these long slopes, but only in spring I love walking through the tunnel of the fantastic cherry trees.

This afternoon I watched an interview video of Ichiro on the Net, because I had missed it on TV last week. His baseball style seems always cool, but in the program, he told us the hot story about his struggles on the game. He said that when he went into a slump, he was able to capture the essence of baseball. I wanted to listen to it in detail, but he didn’t talk any further.

Professional baseball games are going to start tomorrow, and I hope a lot of new stars appear in that world.

So, see you next. Bye!