ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Pictured above is the type of food I’ve taken to lately. As some may have heard in person, I am no cook. I have never been a cook and I was never taught how to cook, nor did I ever approach cooking seriously with attention to details and technique. I used to love watching Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen back then, but now I don’t even watch TV. As you can see in the above photo, I nourish myself mainly on kimchi and rice. In this particular case my rice is supplemented by some prepackaged curry bought at Jupiter in the shotengai.

I had an unusually laid back weekend. On Saturday I suffered a critical sugar crash so that after work all I was capable of doing was Skyping with an old friend and attempting some naps. I did end up catching up on some much needed sleep for about two hours, but then upon waking up I had a difficult time getting back to sleep. Instead of waiting another hour for sleep, I decided then to just pick up a wonderful little book called Make It Stick, about learning new things and retaining the novel information. One day I’d like to write a little review of it and share it with you. So, that was my Saturday: work, sugar crash, nap, Skype video call, nap, reading, then finally sweet sweet sleep. Sunday was very much the same in tone. It started slow, progressed slowly, and ended on the slow side. I woke at around the usual time of 8am, laid in bed for an hour on my phone reading up on some random news of interest shared amongst friends on Facebook, then finally managed to get out of bed for a long hot shower. After I always practice some singing on my piano while occasionally sipping some warm water to relax and soothe my throat. That will go on for 30-60 minutes, and then after I’ll reward myself with some breakfast and tea before heading out the door for a cafe for some studies. Everyday I make it a point to try to get int at least two hours of Japanese studies as well as half an hour of vocal training in some form. It was my NY resolution to do more of the aforementioned. Lately I’ve been going to Starbucks FLAG first before transitioning to Starbucks Festa. I’d like to start incorporating Junkudo’s cafe to reinforce my memory of what I learn at those places with further visual memory cues and associations. Make It Stick recommends building memory palaces of new information by associating visual cues or your environment with information, since it is easier to remember familiar or interesting places and pictures than it is concepts and mere words. Once I get hungry at Starbucks Flag I make my way to another cafe, usually just the other Starbucks, the one on Marugame Machi Road, on the way picking up some food at an udon shop or at some grocers, and a cookie and/or a bottle of water at Starbucks to “pay or my seat.” Then I usually head for home at around 9, clocking in at least eight hours of dedicated studies (to various things, like Japanese, education, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and some literature). On Monday I did the complete opposite: I spent an especially leisurely day. I actually did about two hours of vocal training spread throughout the day. I also picked up my guitar again and jammed on it for a bit, recording a chord progression actually for later reference. I stayed home and finished Make It Stick and started an interesting book by Toshiko Toriyama titled Kenji’s School: Ideal Education for All.

Today’s quote comes from the writer G.K. Chesterton: “But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.”