ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

It's getting warmer and warmer, but even as other flowers are wilting, I'm seeing really full azalea pushes everywhere. They're beautiful here! My mom grows azaleas in her yard, but they never look as full and healthy ad the plants here. And they're all over the place, in all kinds of different shades. Seeing azaleas always makes me think of summer growing up at my parents' house.

  

One night, I was coming home and saw this little guy near my bicycle parking! I had several kinds of lizards as pets. I had newts, anoles, salamanders, and even an iguana before, so I immediately said "aww!" and took a picture with my camera.

I felt a little bit bad for blinding him with the flashlight, but he didn't run away when I got close. I think it was a gecko, based on the shape of it's toes, but I'm not certain. I've heard of people putting lizards in their house and letting them run around and eat bugs, but I didn't try to hold him.

In my river, I have seen about 30 turtles! They make an adorable splashing sound when they run from me and slide into the river. I can't wait to see what other reptiles and amphibians live around me!  

Today's horoscope reads: The clouds in your personal sky are parting to reveal distant horizons that were previously out of sight. You are enthusiastically anticipating the next chapter of your life. You realize the future is yours to create, but in your heart, you know what must be done. Continue tying up loose ends so they don’t hold you back from your destiny.

You know, Oprah Winfrey said, “I believe luck is preparation meeting opportunity. If you hadn’t been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn’t have been lucky.”

It's time to get lucky!  

Hello All! This is an exciting week for me. I'm starting to drive to and from work. It's an eye opening experience. I haven't drove a car in two and a half years since I lived home so I was surprised how comfortable I was driving again. I have to get use to driving on the opposite sides of the road as well as a lot of the narrow streets Japan has but I'm up for the challenge.  

We all need heroes, someone to look up, or what we call role models. I am the firstborn to my parents and so I personally didn’t have one, nor do I pretend to say that I was any role model to my siblings. In fact, I was probably a pretty awful person to be around and compare oneself against. That’s because I was fairly selfish, self-centered, and, frankly, mean. There was a lot of pressure on me from my parents to “succeed” so I grew up with a sort of arrogant attitude. I am still working hard to put aside my ego and just be kinder and less judgmental. So over time I started to develop an awareness of the world around me, which meant that I started to read and think more seriously. In high school I started playing guitar and writing poetry, then in junior college I started writing stories, and then in my first university I majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing. At my second university I started to write theoretically and critically in response to some major Western thinkers, typically of French origin. Pictured above is someone that I admired for a long time, since my university days in fact. He goes by the name of Slavoj Zizek. His writing is incredibly accessible even when he is writing on very difficult concepts like system, dialectics, subjectivity, and the symbolic Other. He is a real model for how to write for the public, illustrating all his ideas with many pop culture examples while also inserting quotes from the original canonical philosophy texts to prove his arguments. Whenever I need some motivation or inspiration I like to open any one of his books to a random page and just read from there to get my brain jumpstarted!  

There are plenty of vending machines all throughout Japan. They sell drinks such as coffee, water, and tea. It’s very convenient when you are on the go and want to grab some coffee. In America, there are vending machines with snacks. Typically these snacks are not very healthy, usually potato chips, cookies, and other salty or sugary snacks. I think it’s interesting to see the difference of vending machine types in each country.


  

Hello again!

This weekend I got to explore Kirinomori, a beautiful location hidden away in the mountains near Shikokuchuo. I will never get tired of the mountains in Ehime. I love the way the greenery rises up out of the ground like the spine of some gigantic beast! I was happy my friend was driving so I could just gaze at the scenery!

I could keep talking about the drive to Kirinomori but I want to move on to my most memorable experience of the day: having matcha at a traditional tea house. My friends and I took our shoes off, my first time doing that at a restaurant, and were shown to our table. The tatami mats and view into green trees and rock formations prepared me for a peaceful time sipping tea and nibbling on mochi. Instead, I experienced an explosion of bitterness in my mouth that was anything but relaxing! Fortunately, I am not totally against bitterness in my tea so, with many bites of mochi to help me along, I finished it all. The most surprising thing of all was that my tea was not the most bitter kind! Why anyone would want tea more bitter than what I had, I don’t know, but someone must like it because it was on the menu! I don’t think I will start drinking that kind of matcha every day but I enjoyed the experience and next time will get the least bitter tea!   

Adding extra ingredients to box-curry is fun and easy to do. I'll Go pretty nuts sometimes :V

I'm not saying I'm a great chef, but having interesting food on the table is fun with a little extra work. Do they taste good though? Hard to say when I'm the only one eating them right now ;V
  

I have probably written about Zen Buddhism a ton here but i must say that as of late (past 2 months or so) I have been getting into the form of poetry called Haiku. It's well known back in Canada but actually reading it in Japanese/Chinese has been a real thrill!

Have you read some Zen Haiku before?


  

Golden Week has come to an end. I didn't go any farther than Niihama, but it was enjoyable. One of my friends used a term that I hadn't heard in a long time...'staycation'. It is a mash-up of the words 'stay' and 'vacation'. If you understand both parts of the word you can guess the meaning.

'Stay' means 'to not move'. And 'vacation' is 'time away from work or school'. So you can guess the meaning...'time off from work but not going anywhere'. It doesn't always mean doing nothing. For me, I went out almost every day, to explore and meet people around my home. I had a good time and got to see parts of the city I don't usually visit.  

For the first four days of Golden Week I was in tokyo! It was very exciting to go there, as it was one of the cities in Japan that was on my list to visit. One of my favorite Japanese foods is ramen and I was very much looking forward to eating it in Tokyo. I had the great opportunity to eat at a Michelin star ramen place for less than 900 yen! it was incredible and I look forward to visiting many more cities in Japan  

I'm currently sick with bronchitis! It makes my throat hurt and I've completely lost my voice. I usually get a couple colds every year, but this is my first time getting a cough this bad.

Yesterday I went on an adventure to the doctor for the first time since coming to Japan. It's was pretty difficult; I had a little bit of a hard time trying to communicate with the doctors and nurses when I only speak a little Japanese and they didn't speak very much English. Thankfully I have a translation app on my phone! So I got the medication I needed. Hopefully I'll get my voice back soon!  

Did you know that May 4th is Star Wars day? In the midwest, where I'm from, we like to hold a lot of pop-culture events for silly reasons. Pop-culture is things like movies, Tv, and comic books.

In the Star Wars movies, there is a saying "May the force be with you" and people thought that it sounded like saying "May Fourth" so they turned that day into Star wars day.

In Michigan, there were many kinds of Star Wars events on that day. From sales to movie viewings, and of course some cosplay! My friends prepared costumes (don't they look great!?) and went to a place that had been done up to look like the set of the movies. It was pretty cool.

I don't like Star Wars, but it's exciting to see that the midwest part of America probably does more cosplay than Japan!   

What a week!

For Golden week I went to Osaka and had a blast. It is such a large city! There was So much that I wanted to do, but only so much that my money would allow. I was able to visit the National Art Museum of also got. It was amazing. There were so many great exhibits there. my favorite exhibit was an exhibit that explored the rehearsal practice that artist go through when creating their artwork. It was a series of videos that showed musicians, actors, and singers practicing their craft with no sound. It was very interesting watching violinists play and not hearing the sounds of a violin. Besides visiting the castle if you're ever in Osaka I highly recommend going to the art museum and checking out their exhibits.  

Time flies. This is from the halcyon days, golden days, days of lore, the great great past. Here we are at the Marugame castle pretend fighting. A teacher taught us this game where we had to try to tag each other on the chest. In defense we were allowed to move about freely and block attacks with our hands. The idea was that we impersonate samurais and pretended that our arms or hands were weapons. I was still basically new to the company back then, so I was still really awkward. But these were some of my favorite coworkers and I miss them a lot. We’ve all gone, basically, our separate ways, and I still think of them all. That day was my initiation into the world of play.  

Hello all! This Golden week was very special for me as I went back to the states to see my family again and get married to my wonderful fiancee Candice. We've been traveling together for a couple of years and we finally tied the knot in Newnan Georgia where my family lives. I feel like the luckiest man in THE WORLD!!!
  

This is my sister Laura. She is my best friend. Her and I have always been very close ever since we were little. We always played together and as we grew up we always supported each other. I feel so lucky that I have a sister. It’s such a special thing. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I miss her so much, but she is trying to come and visit in November. I hope she can!


  

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to my first ever blog post from Japan! Although I haven’t been here very long, I’ve already had the opportunity to visit two famous Japanese gardens, Ritsurin Koen and Okayama Korakuen. I was impressed by how very different they were from any gardens I have ever visited. I am from America, have traveled to Europe and been to a variety of parks, gardens, and perfectly groomed yards. I can confidently say that Ritsurin Koen and Okayama Korakuen strike a balance I have rarely seen in Western landscapes. Often, Western gardens seem to be trying to bend nature to their will; to make things look the way they envision even if it means chopping off some branches. The gardens at Versailles in France are a classic, although somewhat extreme, example of this. On the flip side, I have visited some gardens that seem to invite nature to do what it pleases, without any attempts to tame it. I’m looking at you, Oregon! Neither of these styles is wrong, although I personally find the unchecked sprawl of branches and untrimmed grasses to be a bit messy. However, neither the Ritsurin Koen or the Okayama Korakuen fit either of these categories. I would describe them as feeling wholly natural and completely crafted at the same time. It seems like someone could have simply found them in nature, decided to tidy things up a bit, and there you go! Now, I know that’s not what happened. These gardens were certainly carefully planned with every rock put in exactly the right spot. But I was impressed by how close I felt to nature and how organic everything felt, even with the perfectly trimmed grass and graceful stone walking paths. I didn’t have a goal of visiting as many Japanese gardens as possible before I came here, but I think I may need to add it to my list! If nothing else, I will be visiting Ritsurin Koen and Okayama Korakuen again!  

I'll usually have a long stretch of time where I listen to one CD or genre, like most people. I got a recommendation for a podcast right before Golden week started. So my theme the whole vacation was this Dungeons and Dragons podcast, of all the things it could've been. Really didn't think I'd like it but was pretty great. I spent a lot of time, cleaning, running, or a long time in a car so it was the perfect thing I suppose.

Theres a lot of weird things about DnD, but I never thought listening to people play it would've been interesting.
What did you listen to over the break?

Can't wait to see you next week.

  

As of late i have been turning my attention away from analytic philosophy of mind/language to the age old Buddhist philosophy which in turn made me turn to the Buddhist conception of reality which also means studying the cosmology of it.

Have you ever seen this before? It's pretty neat!