ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Getting sick in America can mean lots and lots of debt. Monday I ended up going to the hospital. It appears as though my lovely wife gave me whatever it is that she has. If it had been America I would have come out with a shot and a nice big bill. Here in Japan I came out with 5 different medications for three days. And the bill you ask? Less than 20 US dollars.

The I find both the price and the medicine to be very different from what I am used to. In America the bill is bigger but I always get medication for, at the very least, one week. My family doctor back in America knows that if I am at his office I am at the point where I need a shot and not pills. The shot works great for me. My the next day I feel great. Today is Thursday, I have finished my medication and I still feel pretty bad.

The jury is still out on this one. While I do prefer the price of a hospital visit in Japan I think I rather have my American medication. Still I feel it is unfair to compare a family doctor that has gotten to know me over the past years to a hospital in Japan. It is like comparing oranges to apples.

Do you think the Japanese health system is good? Do you believe Japanese medicine is weaker than american?  

I bought a cute notebook and pencil the other day. A student showed me the rainbow pencil and I looked all over the mall for one. It's so neat! I have a plethora of small Japanese notebooks, I love the designs with ghosts on them the most! I probably have 6 ghost notebooks in my apartment right now.

I'm trying to take control of my note-taking too. I used to keep several notebooks in college, only to end up using one big one. It was easier, but it was never organized well. I tried!

Today I bought a small binder that holds loose paper. You can move the papers around to any part of the binder and it acts like a notebook. Japan is really advanced when it comes to stationary stuff. I adore it.

I hope I can stay organized at preparing my lessons. It always starts out well, then turns out to be a crazy mess.

So what's the first thing I need to do???? DECORATE! I'm very very good at that.

Good thing I also love to buy stickers.   

This past Tuesday we had our yearly Easter Picnic! Last year I was living in Kanonji, so I had joined the group that went to Ichinomiya park in Toyohama. That was a fun time, and it was amazing weather as well. This year, since I now live in Niihama, I joined the group that went to Hiuchi park, in Saijo. It was a pretty nice day, though the clouds were a bit bothersome (they covered the sun at times, making it a bit cold). We had a lot of people join, especially from Niihama school. It definitely seemed more like a huge party rather than a picnic. Of course we had the standard activities for Easter. namely the egg hunt and egg dyeing, as well as just general running around and having fun with our students. And of course, all the food that people brought for the potluck. There were a lot of sandwiches and sweets made, among other things. I personally made a special kind of chicken parmesan, one that did not involve any tomatoes. It was only my second time making it, and it turned out pretty well. A lot of people seemed to enjoy it, both students and parents. And once the event was officially over, many people stuck around to enjoy the day at the park, myself included. It was really a good event, and I wish we could have more like it. Too bad it isn't warm all year 'round.   

  

This past weekend my friend and I went on an amazing adventure! We went to Awajishima and played in a trick art museum, then we went to blooming fields of beautiful yellow and purple flowers, and after that, we went to an amazing greenhouse that was host to a plethora of flowers from Cacti to Orchids to Cherry Trees! It was so amazing! In the trick art museum we got to be ninjas or giants, I of course loved the ninja scene! The flower fields were amazing too, tons and tons of flowers! The smell was amazing! My favorite however was the greenhouse! There was every type of flower I could think of and more! I had such a great time!

  

Hello!

Today I want to talk a little about making a big change in my life. Ever since I can remember, I have always been a bigger guy, and not just in height! I knew that this was because of overeating and lots of snacks and sugars, but I was always (I believed) balancing this habit with general exercise and being relatively active. In Canada, I would walk everywhere, from home to work to school to friend's houses, and back again, because I didn't have a vehicle that I could drive around. I wasn't in peak physical condition, but I was OK with where I was.

Once I came to Japan, however, this changed, because now, not only was I driving to schools to work, but even while I was working, I was sitting and not being as active as I would be when I was working in Canada. So, recently, I have decided I want to change all that. Starting as soon as possible, I want to be committed to a healthier lifestyle through controlling what I eat, and when I eat it. Japan has an abundance of foods that are extremely healthy for you, so I want to pursue that much harder than just going to a store and buying what looks good. It's going to take planning and willpower, but now that I have the desire to change, I can apply that to actually making that change happen!

I'm excited to start as soon as possible, and look forward to the results!

A  

  

Here in Saijo, the Cherries are still hiding out. However, up in the mountains, there are quite a few to be found.



I'm really excited for the flower viewing season to being. I've already been to one barbecue, and it was awesome. :)
  

Hello, all!

Sakura season is here! Naturally, that means it's time to talk about death.

In the wabi-sabi aesthetic, cherry blossoms, which bloom briefly and then die, represent the fleeting nature of life. They are transient, but because they are transient, they are lovely. The beauty of a cherry blossom is inseparable from its impermanence: that which is most short-lived generates the strongest, purest feelings in the observer. Pity, sorrow, and longing are the very bedrock of beauty. (The term mono no aware is the most accurate description of this element of wabi-sabi.)

To Westerners, this idea sounds very Japanese, and pretty depressing. But here's what's interesting about the idea of finding beauty in transience: it's universal! Western tradition has an equally rich tradition of pathos, an appeal to the emotions that is both sad and focused on the tragedy of everyday things. Many famous works of art depict this mono no aware-like pathos; Millais' Ophelia springs to mind.

Millais depicts Ophelia (from Shakespeare's Hamlet) in the moments before her demise, when
Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
The very dress that keeps Ophelia afloat in the painting is shortly to be the instrument of her doom. There are many, many other famous passages of Shakespeare that reflect a strong sensitivity to the beauty of impermanence, from tragedies like Macbeth ("Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more") to romances like The Tempest ("We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep") to comedies like A Midsummer Night's Dream ("But she, being mortal, of that boy did die," is a shockingly profound line when delivered appropriately).

As for me, I discovered the idea of transience not through my interaction with Japanese culture, but in my senior year of high school, when I wrote a very long research paper on the Arthurian legends. I wanted to learn why the stories of King Arthur were so enduring, and my conclusion can be summed up in a Millais-influenced painting, James Archer's The Death of King Arthur:

I discovered that Arthur and his knights remained popular because they personified transient beauty. Camelot was, in the words of the Broadway musical, "one brief shining moment," or in the words of Tennyson,
A doom that ever poised itself to fall,
An ever-moaning battle in the mist,
World-war of dying flesh against the life,
Death in all life and lying in all love,
The meanest having power upon the highest,
And the high purpose broken by the worm.
King Arthur lives forever in our imaginations because he was always doomed; he said with T.S. Eliot, "in my beginning is my end... and in my end is my beginning."

Two years later, I took an Asian Traditions course in college and discovered mono no aware, and I will never forget the shock of realizing that even the most culturally specific concepts find analogues in the most far-flung societies. Of course wabi-sabi and pathos are not the same thing, although there are many parallels, but the fundamental beauty of looking at something that is about to perish is something genuinely universal. The cherry blossoms remind me of that truth every time I see them.

Enjoy your hanami!

—Matthew  

Being new to the area, I'm happy to go site seeing and learn new things. On my day off, I visited Kokubunji Temple, which is said to be founded in 741 and is one of the 88 temples associated with the Buddhist monk Kukai on the island of Shikoku. Among the treasures at this site are the wooden statue of Senju Kennon, a bell, and the dismounting stone. This site has been designated a special historic site. It is just a few minutes walk from the train station and is well worth the trip to visit it!




  

This week one of my fellow teachers showed me something really cool - Shikoku bread! It's a little loaf of bread (or maybe its a kind of pound cake?) in the shape of Shikoku! It was so cute, and pretty yummy too! I think it would be realy neat to see a Kagawa shaped bread next, don't you?

  

The thing I am most excited for about spring is the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the Sakura!! In America we don't have beautiful trees that bloom, definitely not so many in one place. Also, where I am from, Miami, there is only one season, Summer!!!! So this prevents any magical change to happen from season to season.

I plan on taking lots of pictures and maybe even painting and drawing the Sakura. I will post them when I finish them. :)

Are you excited for the Sakura??
  

I really like visiting Tobe Zoo in Matsuyama. I went recently with some of my friends. Here is a picture I took of the Lions.

What is your favorite animal at the Zoo? I really like red pandas the best. I didn't get to take a picture because I was having so much fun watching them play that I forgot. When it was time to leave the Zoo it actually started to rain. I was glad that the lion bus came to pick me up and take us back to our car.

It was a really fun day! I like going with my friends.

Thank you for reading,

Kristen
  

Did you know that in the United States we have a big Spring cleaning of our house? Much like the end of the year cleaning in Japan to prepare for the New Year, in the United States it is common to clean your house in spring. In my house we clean everything top to bottom and outside. We throw away broken things and donate things we don't use anymore.

Now that I am in Japan, I have been doing the end of the year cleaning. But when Spring comes I still feel like I need to clean out all the old things. This weekend I will prepare for my Spring cleaning!

What do you think about having a Spring Cleaning at your house? Let me know!

Thank you for reading,

Kristen  

These are actual, custom made light sabers. You know, the weapon of a Jedi from my favorite movies, Star Wars. Like I said these are custom made and metallic, not plastic. Everything from the outside to the inside is crafted in detail. It even has a "color crystal", which is what gives the light saber its power in Star Wars.

The light saber in the picture isn't mine, unfortunately, but one day I'll get one! They are pretty expensive though.

- James Barbosa  

This is my nephew and my sister. My nephew shares the same birthday as I do, so he recently turned 2! I haven't seen him in a while, and he;s gotten so big. I look forward to when I go home and he's big enough to toss around and wrestle with. He really likes football, so I plan on taking him to the park and showing him how to tackle. In English, we refer to tackling and wrestling and things like that as "horsing around" or "rough housing." I love rough housing, and I know my nephew is going to to.   

Barcelona FC is now at 38 games without a defeat! They recently surpassed Real Madrid's 34 game record. The question is will Barcelona be able to reach the 41 game goal? The current world record is held by Juventus with an astonishing 41 games undefeated. The biggest obstacle for Barcelona is their next match, known as "El Clasico" they will be facing off Spanish rival Real Madrid. Real Madrid has the highest chance of being able to stop Barcelona from achieving a new world record. For as long as I can remember I have always seen "El Clasico" but that might be coming to an end. In Japan I have no idea how I could watch the game live. Hopefully I can figure something out in time, bring out the juice, chips, and let the fun begin!

  

I got some cool mail the other day! I joined the VAMPS fanclub last month and I received my first fanclub item! You may remember that I've seen VAMPS 3 times now, the most recent being last October's Halloween party in Kobe. We don't really have fanclubs in America (the country is just too big) so once I knew I was living in Kagawa for some time, I jumped at the chance to join an active fanclub in Japan.

A few times a year I get a magazine (it's as big as a newspaper though) all about the band and their activities. It was a neat surprise to find that black envelope just waiting at my door. One of the pages turned out to be a poster! But my young girl poster days are behind me.

I'm supposed to get a member's card but it hasn't arrived yet. I've also been given special opportunities like this month's ski trip with the band or pre-orders for VAMPS goods. I've already seen something AMAZING that I want to pre-order, but it's just too expensive.

Still, I'm excited for my first year in a fanclub!  

Growing up, I (think) I did not get too many hair cuts. At least, that is what it feels like. I always seem to remember my mother or grandmother cutting my hair (the former doing such a terrible job, that I tried to go for a professional cut more often, haha). I am pretty sure the reason is to save money, though I do not think getting a hair cut was all that expensive, especially at a barber shop. The pricier end of the spectrum would have a cut ranging from $15-20 dollars, and I personally would feel ridiculous paying so much to basically shave my head. (I would not feel so bad when I actually styled my hair). It Japan, I feel like many places are much more expensive (though it may be around the same range when converted). Even so, I have started to cut, or rather shave, my head on my own. I actually have started getting better at it (I have only done it three times). At this rate, maybe I will start to try doing some crazy designs!  

I have been watching a lot of comedy this week! I find that starting the day laughing and happy makes the world brighter and more fun! Comedians are wonderful entertainers that spread happiness but there are several different styles of Comedians. There are Slapstick comedians, Farce comedians, Satire, Stand-Up, and Variety show comedians and these are just a few categories! For every person there is a comedy type that they can get into! I love Gabriel Iglesias (Fluffy), Kevin Hart, Alonzo Lerone, and Jeff Dunham to name a few. They are amazing comedians and if you want to, please check them out! Live Life Laughing!