Monday, May 6, 2013

Tomodachi Family

                 Yuki and I went to hang out with our Tomodachi Familly last weekend. They are Steven and Tina. At first, we went to the pizza store which is very far from school.  We got there by Steven car. It was such a nice day, so driving was very exciting. This pizza store was so delicious. They knew many things around Salem. After that, we went to their house. At the time, I needed to fix something. Tina was good at sawing very much. Furthermore, I asked her to fix something. She traveled somewhere with sawing club members to make something. I also like sawing, so I was excited to listen to her travel story and about her hand made something. Someday, I want to saw something with her in their house. And Yuki and I finished making a jigsaw puzzle which was prepared by them. They also like jigsaw puzzles. There are many jigsaw puzzles in their house. I like their house because this is so cute, many senses to decorate, and clean. Before they took us to school, they showed us Steven’s work office near school. He works as a boss at the movie theater which shows black and white movie. It seemed to be traditional theater because there were many famous pictures on the wall and beautiful stand glasses. I understood he works at a great job. Next time, Yuki and I plan to go to a movie there. There are held some weddings sometimes. This weekend was so exciting. On the Mother’s Day, May 12th, we will go to a picnic somewhere. I will spend Mother’s Day with Tina and Steven. I am glad to be their Tomodachi student.





CCTV Reflection


                I think that these CCTV classes are very difficult for me, but they are important things for me, maybe for my life. There are many reasons I think so. First of all, I can try to ask American people, such as my teachers, my friends, and my tutoring. So, the CCTV classes make me active.  Second reason, the pronunciation practices by my teachers or tutoring are very valuable for me. I’d ever had such a nice time for me to be checked my pronunciation by my teachers or my tutoring. Also, I could listen to clear and good pronunciation. Third reason, I learned the important practice of emphasis on words. It was very important during this CCTV, discussion, sure of usually conversation day by day. I really understand how to emphasize important words. In addition to this, natural speaking is important. I tried reading CCTV script again and again. I hope my speaking is better than a first time. For these reasons, I experienced good classes or tutoring very much. I want to combine next goal. Moreover I want to try a lot of things from now. I think it was very hard work for me to make the TV script. In spite of that, I never gave up. We faced a lot of problems, and we discussed every problems again and again. There were many problems during this project. First of all, my role is the Introduction and Conclusion. Summarizing was very difficult about them. I tried summarizing simply. The second reason is pronunciation and intonation. I’m not very good at them. Then I practiced a lot, and I will practice a lot until the TV recording. We went to R&W tutoring to check our pronunciation and intonation by the. The last reason is the TV script makes me very nervous. I often am nervous in front of people when I am talking a lot. To say nothing of the TV show, I think I’ll be nervous very much. For these reasons, this TV script is hard work and makes me nervous, but I think this was good for studying and a good opportunity to improve my English skills, for example, pronanciation, intonation, speaking, writing, and so on. Moreover, I think I could understand Japanese modern culture again. In short writing, this TV  script is a nice experience for me and I want to make efficient use of this.
 
 




 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

READING FAIR

                
There was an interesting and fun event called, "Reading Fair" at the TIUA. Every student prepared their reading book posters. There were many interesting posters. Some students chose the Disney stories, other students chose a lot of stories I didn’t know. Every student made a lot of effort to make their poster. I liked some interesting stories. There were Nottingham Hill, Riders of the Purple Sage, Pirates of The Caribbean and UNO which were easy to understand for me. ” In the Nottingham Hill, there were main 3 character William , Anna and Jeff. Anna and Jeff had already date. One day when William met Anna, he felled in love to Anna with first meeting.” said Nana. And Nana continued this story “ When William felt in love to Anna, Anna also felt in love to him. Because her boyfriend, Jeff was mean to her, she chose William. Finally, William and Anna got marriage.” This was fiction story about love triangle story. Also, UNO was about the dog called “UNO”. This story was introduced by Anna. “UNO was Blue Ribbon Beagle. This story was non-fiction. UNO was the best dog in U.S. because he won the Blue ribbon which is the top prize for dogs in 2007. At the time, he was only 8 months- old.” she said. Riders of the Purple Sage poster was made by Akimi. She recommended this story because this was very interesting. “This was about Western story, in cottonwoods in Utah in 1871. This was like a love fiction story. There were happy ending, but there were some problem.” Pirates of The Caribbean was introduced by Takahiro. He told us, “ This is the Disney story. This was made in Port Royal in 1600.” He loved the Pirates of The Caribbean series, and his favorite scene was a fighting with Jack sparrow and Balvossa. Moreover everyone standing there seemed not only to have fun but also nervous. But, they speeches very well. I liked this show like a festival. Exactly, there were many snack and juices on the table. We had to make own blog about this "Reading Fair". We had to take care of " iPods" loaned by Professor because these machines can’t get wet. During the festival, she looked at us with caring, so section 8&9 people were also nervous. Although there were many things nervous students, I was able to have fun and learn about many story recommended by my friends.




 
 
 
 






!i Wulapalooza !i


              I went to the Wulapalooza, the school festival in WU. It was so exciting because the festival was huge and radical. There were many people lying on the grass ground. It seemed like this was a beach. Especially, there were many music bands. These bands music made people crazy and fun. Everyone standing there was jumping with rhythms. Usually people are calm, but they were so crazy and funky at the time. I was surprise at the effect of Wulapalooza. I looked at another show by my friends. She was singing well. There were people singing with voice percussion very well. I was surprised at her because I don’t often see woman singing acapella ever. That made me want to sing voice percussion, but this is difficult. I also saw Japanese guy singing in English. I was impressed by his fluency pronunciation. I wanted to improve my pronunciation a lot.  Moreover there were many differences between this Wulapalooza and the TIU festival. At the first, there were many bands in this Wulapalooza. Also, they had high quality. In addition to this, most people were half-nude or ware swim wear, which seems to be high tension. In Japan, few people are half-nude or ware swim wear at the school festival. I hope TIU festival would also be as exciting as this Wulapalooza.






LU’ AU

         

            I went to the LU’ AU, the Hawaii festival by Willamette University’s Hawai’i Club in Sparks. I was so excited and surprised a lot because there were nothing I had before seen ever, such as traditional clothes and food. My favorite food in this LU’ AU was “Lomi Lomi Salmon” which was salmon rubbed by hand. It was so delicious. I wanted to make this. There were many my friends on the show, so I took many pictures of them and with them at last. In addition to this, they were dancing “Aloha”. This dance was various. Some dance was slowly, other dances were radical. I liked many men screaming and punch their own breasts. It was so cool and powerful. Also, I liked woman dancing slowly. It seemed to feel romantic very much. And I saw the fire knife dance. It was used to express a warrior’s fighting skill and triumph in battle. It was little sparsely, but the performance man was cool and formidable. This LU’ AU, the Hawaii festival made me wanted to go to Hawaii. It seemed to know a lot of Hawaii only a day. I was glad to go to this festival.






 

Monday, April 15, 2013

Weekend, 4/7



                I went to the Sakura Matsuri in WU cat cabin on Suturday. There were many Japanese and American. Some people were professor family. I thougt this festival made Japanese connect to American, so I was inpresived.  My part’s Origami, folding a paper and making some figure, is very popure in Japan.  Many people came to my booth, and I told them how to make traditional crane and a cherry blossom petal. When they made them perfect, they were glad very much. Anothere proglums, there were Karaoke, So-ran bushi, Taiko musical, and so on. There were all Japanese traditional culture. It was so fun, futheremore I could feel I was in Japan. I was little sad because I felt it to miss Japan a little. I ate Japanese foods at lunch. It was very delicious. I really knew I like Japanese foods is the best favorite food.  This SakuraMaturi was very interesting and exciting. I was interested very much. After that, I went to the donney to watch the movies with my friends. We watched two horror movies. I like watching horror movies because my friends is always scarsly very much. Sometime I was surprised at their harsh fear. This movie night was so fun and exciting.


                I took part in the “Flower Viewing at Travel Center” by Kanoko. Other participants were also my friends. I was looking forward to go to the capital building to do  Flower Viewing. We couldn’t do Flower Viewing because the cherry blossoms were gone, and the weather was terrible. We were so sad, but we could have fun. These reasons were Kanoko’s guide and going shopping. I’d never been to the capital building until this weekend. This building was made with marble. It looked very nice and I was impressed in that there is a lot of valuable marble near my school. Also, we looked around the parks. There were many things I did’t see,for example, the Bell from Philadelphia, the broken second capital building,and so on. In addition to this, Kanoko explained to us about these things. It was so fun. These let us know many things about Oregon. We took many picture of these things. Next , we went to the Starbucks downtown, and we took a short break for drinking coffee. After  relaxing, we went to the Salem Center. I wanted to buy new sports shoes, but I couldn’t find one I was sutisfied with. I bought other things. There were many souveniors for my friends, my parents, and so on. My brother often drinks wine, so I bought the wine cork for him. This looked so cool.  I hope that he is glad to get this one. There were many things I was satisfied with. But I didn’t buy anything else. I wanted to think deeply about souveirs. Then we went back to school, everyone else  also said that the day was so enjoynable. I want to know more about Oregon.




Sunday, April 7, 2013

REDWOOD*


I went to the Redwoods forest in San Francisco during Spring Break. I took part in the Outdoor Program. There were 8 people from various countries and a Japanese people besides me. It was so fun, exciting and full of chances. This trip was for 5 days. I thought it was easy at first, but it was so hard. As soon as arrived our cabin, we made our tent. I made it for the first time in my life. I thought a lot of things on this trip were my first time, all thigs were challenging. I was so excited during the trip.

The first day, I went to the sea, and I saw the sunset. The sunset was so beautiful. I’d never seen such beautiful sunset ever. Also, we went to the downtoun to buy something for BBQ and the next day’s meals. The BBQ outside was so fun and exciting. They liked making roasted marshmallows. Because I was firs time to make this, I learnd how to make this. I always burnedg marshmallows. Making marshmallows was difficult for me, but the taste was so delicious. I tried to sleep in the tent because I never slept outside. I used a sleepingbag. This made me warm. I liked covering me with this, but this made me prevent to move. I couldn’t sleep well every night.


We went to the Redwood forest to hike 7km over and 5km over for 2 days. This hiking was dangerous and hard for me. I never hiked befor this trip, so warking in the forest was difficult for me. There were a lot of huge redwoods. The size of these tree was as big as surrounding 10 people over. I was surprised very much. I was surprised at most tree had the hole inside. There were many broken tree, so I could enter the tree. The tree size was around me. Sometimes I could enter holes of burned tree. There were many famous trees. And I was surprised at Corkscrew tree. The tree got twisted. Another tree, I looked at the Boy scout tree. I thought this tree was the hugest in this trip. There were humourus tree such as bumpy tree. Some tree had monkey face bumpy. We laughed at this. They said “Mr. Bryan looks like this!”, so he stood next to the monkey bumpy tree. It was so funny.







We went to many places besides the forest. There were a lot of coasts, restaurants, and a zoo. I went to the zoo for the first time in a long time. This season, they had baby bears. They were so cute and so small.

I was glad to experience the great hiking, camping, communication, and so on. I was able to make my life full during Spring Break. I want to make positive efforts to take part in another activity a lot.