English Square Blog: January 2009

Jan 18, 2009

Yet Another Birthday Celebration

Those of you who knew me well in my younger days would be shocked if I posted the pictures of what I sandwiched between salt and lemon last night at our friends annual infamously wild birthday party, so I'll spare you and my friends the photos, save these two. We had a fun night and hope our friend had a memorable birthday - or at least that he remembers it. ; D

The birthday man...and his aikido buddy.

Us getting ready to leave to catch the last train home and friends kindly insisting we stay longer.

Winter Veggies

Anyone want to come over and have a veggie party? These are gifts from one of our students' gardens. Two huge giant white radishes, equally giant Chinese cabbages, broccoli, green onions, carrots, and mizuna. It's "kimuchee nabe" nite, I think. YUM!

The poor woman wheeled this load of vegetables on a luggage cart in two plastic crates from her garden to our house. Must have been very slow going and very heavy over the not so great sidewalk. OTSUKARE SAMA DESU, Mrs. I! and ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!! (head bowing repeatedly as I write.)

Jan 17, 2009

I'm Mickey. I'm a mouse. You're Babe. You're a pig.

Teaching kids the tricky "be" verb has never been so fun! Mickey, Winnie the Pooh, Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Peter Rabbit, Babe and Snoopy helped a lot. They have no idea they're learning the "be" verb, of course. But they sure were good at it and enjoyed this activity.

This class was quite a while ago, but I just found these precious photos in the depths of our computer and wanted to share. They have the "It's.." and "It isn't..." down now, too. And the new year will bring "He's/He isn't" and "She's/She isn't" into the picture. Looking forward to more adventures with this always fun, enthusiastic, and attentive class!

(Hints for my students: "to have down" means to understand and be able to use, "to bring into the picture" means to have something introduced. Boy, English idioms are tricky, right?)

Jan 8, 2009

Keep it Simple.

Dear Lisa and Mashi,

Hello! Thanks!

A Happy New Year!

Party Iwao「OK」 Sachiyo「NG」

Iwao Go!!

Oh! 「11」special day!

♪It is my birthday.♪

I am looking forward to seeing you.

by Iwao.

Great message, I think! Keep it Simple! Not only is this the slogan of one of my favorite children's music makers, Super Simple Songs, it is what our friend reminded me of with this e-mail message in which he responded to an invitation to our house this weekend.

I spend some of my working life trying to teach students to make full, complete, grammatically correct, yet concise sentences - well, I sort of do that. But, anyway, as you notice, I go on and on and babble and babble and don't always "Keep it Simple!"

So, thank you Iwao for your nice reminder that simple is not only best, it's more than enough. Message appreciated and thoroughly understandable!

11th - Iwao's birthday.

"Good!"

Simple cake - OK?

Jan 6, 2009

Japanese New Year's Postcards

In many western countries it's tradition to send Christmas greetings to family and friends, whereas in Japan it's tradition to send greetings for each new year in the form of postcards. We are lucky to get some really nice postcards every year. I just wanted to share with my "readers" back home, if there are even enough to be labelled as such, some of my favorites. I selected all hand-made postcards from our students, two written in Japanese, two in English.

These are from elementary school age kids who attend our small school:

The big character written in the center stands for "cow" complete with cow print and all.

On the second one above, I cut the students names for sake of privacy, but it was so cute...

They are twin sisters who each signed the card. At first they wrote their names in English letters in traditional Japanese order with the family name first, then they erased them, I'm guessing on the advice of their always attentive and very caring mom, and wrote them the more accepted English way of given name first. These students are so thorough in everything they do. Even their dots on the exclamation points are cute.

The next is from a boy in my 3 year olds class...yes, THREE years old! He wrote each of our names out, under cute faces. I was so touched...and impressed. His mom wrote "Happy New Year" I'm sure.

Below is a card from a student in one of our adult classes. She hand writes / paints a limited number of postcards each year, out of which I'm fortunate to receive one. I think it's just beautiful and so delicately written.

The last one I chose is from friends of ours. For those of you who can't read Japanese, it says "Happy 'Nyu' Year" - 'nyu' in Japanese means milk and since it's the year of the cow, well, you get it. And I just loved the Obama reference! We're looking forward to the year ahead! We got so many cute cards, wish I could share them all, but wanted to say thanks to everyone.

And if you've read this far, I just had to share my favorite American style family Christmas card, of course including my favorite kids - my niece and nephew in Maine. The red nose is just the right touch!

You're such a great family - and I just loved your letter again this year, Emilie! You certainly have a gift for writing. Hope you don't mind me sharing.

Jan 5, 2009

Thailand & Malaysia ③

(Blogged by Mashi with English comments by Lisa)

マレーシアのクアラルンプール。 After Thailand, we were off to Kuala Lumpur.

ここへは、本来乗り継ぎの為来ましたが、
折角なのと、Lisaの誕生日と重なった為
ちょっと奮発してみました。
（バンコクで節約してよかったです～(^_^;)
We tried to up our level of travel from our $30/night room in Bangkok, to a, well, I'll just say a bit more expensive room in KL. We stayed at this 5-star beauty...

あの有名な

Mandarin Oriental
http://www.mandarinoriental.com/kualalumpur/

立派です。

こんなホテル泊まったことありません(^_^;)
We certainly weren't used to this much luxury...I mean, welcome star fruit, come on!

ウェルカムフルーツも。
思いっきりおのぼりさんになり

写真を撮りまくり(^^ゞ

プールがいいと聞いていたので

早速行ってみました。

...and this pool overlooking the main city park...too much!

う～ん、なるほど・・・

優雅な雰囲気です。

今回はラッキーなことにコーナーの部屋、

窓が２面にあり一方からはあのペトロナスツインタワーが目の前に見えます。

夜はぶらぶら。

But, we still found ourselves drawn to these street side shops for dining...they're just so lively and different...oh, and cheap.

ジャラン・アロー

やっぱり屋台街に来てしまいます(^^ゞ

In front the Petronas Towers or the "twin towers" - after all, it's my birthday, and I'm a twin. Happy 40th, Sam!

日本に帰る日は出発が夜１２：５５なので

チェックアウトの後は↓で観光。

Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour

街を巡回しているバスで、２４時間以内なら

どのバス停でも乗り降り自由。

バスの中、２階席から。

チャイナタウンで下車、遅いお昼ごはん。サテー！

We ended up in China town eating again before heading to the airport - only to eat again there and on the plane. I gotta get back to Japan and running again!

なんとか夜まで時間をつぶした後は空港へ。

今回最後の写真@Kuala Lumpur Airport