YOU: A Personal Writing

This course was interesting.
Before this fall term started, I was worried about this course because it was mysterious. I mean I, or we didn't know about the class. other that reason, I was worried because I thought nothing would come out of me. But now i know that anxiety was in vain.
The class was very at home and I could experience a lot of things Ive never done before. I wrote a haiku as an assignment and a poem as my second piece for the first time and i wrote a personal writing and a short story in English for the first time, too. Creating something by myself is embarrasing to me but I think this experience is even better than no experience.
The most importantly, I started to keep a diary taking inspiration from this course.
I will  keep my personal writings in the future.

Thank you all!

What I've learned in this course

Time went by so quickly in this term, and I can't believe that this course would be done. feel strange.
           
My first piece is about mother through my experience in my highschool days.
Second one is a poem about the personality or individuality. Some of us try to hide ourselves because being different makes it hard for us to live our lives smoothly and safely. But that is wrong, and we know real you can only make your life real. Being who you are is special. This is what my poem is all about and it's really connected to this course.
Third one is a short story about Engrish which is the irony for English Japanese people speak.

What I've learned from this course is free writing is very interesting!
I like free writing because it is related to what I'm thinking right now and it will enable us to recall what I was thinking at that time. This class inspired me to keep a diary, though it's in japanese.

Anyway, I had very precious time:)

My obituary

Hisashi Tsuchiya, resident of Ohio, America, passed away on 2073, at the age of 82, at a bar he used to go to.
Mr. Tsuchiya was born on the December 26th, in Tokyo. He moved to New Jersey  as a young child with her loving family. Mr. Tsuchiya chose the life of holding a farmer taking inspiration from the beauty of country music and the nature. Until the retirement, he dedicated his life to making money for his wife and children. Before and after his retirement, he used to go to a bar and sing country songs with playing the guitar with his friends. He could not be famous as a singer, though he was locally loved, especially at the bar. Every day was not stimulating but he really enjoyed it.
One day, when he played songs with his friends, he suddenly got down and died srrounded by his friends espite being brought to a hospital because of heart attack.
At Mr. Tsuchiya request there is no service that is being held. Please send your condolences to the bar

Draft3

Draft3

Short Story

How Difficult Engrish is!

I am an American and working with a Japanese co-worker, who is awkward, doesn’t work well, and always brings problems to me. But they are usually tiny ones.

One day, he came into my office and said “A hose gets out of control. I don’t know what to do.”
“Here we go. This is him. Turn off the faucet” I thought to myself. “Ok, I can handle this”, I said back to him.
Then, the minute I opened the door to go outside, I noticed something hit me.
“This is a hoRse!” he screamed.

What is religion to me?

Speaking of "religion", I say Chiristianity, Islum, Judaism, Bhuddism and etc like big, popular religions. But in Japan, those religions are a minoriy, or religion itself seems unfamiliar with people.
Im taking Theme writing and one classmate wrote about the religion in Japan, or the difference between God and Kami(神). I forgot about the plot and I dont know anything about religion, but it exists in Japan like animism while the concept is different from other religions. So even though Im not religious, I might believe in the certain belief un conciously.

Basically, religions are for saving religious people from pain or suffering, I think. but wars have been happening and discriminations occur because of them sometimes. If it rubs people of hapiness, it is not necessary, I think. I mean some religious people misunderstand the real message, which is never to hurt people. religion itself is very intersting if it's not used in a wrong way.
But the situation is more complicated

Anyways, religion has had a huge impact on the politics, art, music, economy, the way people are. In terms of that, It is very interesting. I respect that.

Glee

Im so into Glee that is an American drama these days. I've never watched any American drama before because it is long like season 1~9 and I'll be tired from watching it because I have no concentration.

The highlight is absolutely Glee. They cover a variety of songs. from Journey, AC/DC, KISS, The Beatles to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Cee lo Green or etc. Some people think original is the best, and I think that is fine. But some of these covers are also exciting because the casts can really sing well. I dont care if its original or cover and I'm sure these songs make you want to move.


This is one of the covers that is mashup from Umbrella by Rihanna and Singing in the rain by Gene Kelly.

Umbrella/Rihanna

Singing in the Rain/Gene Kelly

I hope you'll like it!

My Second Draft

Invisible

I'm invisible.
No light, no shadow
I'm invisible.
No air, no sound
Nobody knows silent screams

I'm invincible.
No hurt, no pain.
They never get in the way of me
Because I'm invisible.
No facing, no escaping.
Emotions even ignore me.

When I speak, some will deny.
When I look, some will defy.
Bring tears, Brings fears.
But I'd rather live than exist.

Still I'm invisible.
But I'm not what I used to be.


Please comment:)

Re:(Free 7) JOJO let me feel JO-JO (from Genta's blog)

I checked Genta's blog. He introduced JOJO I also love.
And I want to introduce another highlight.
It is Onomatopoeia. It is seen in many Japanese mangas and is one of the features of Japanese language. We express sounds of the heavy rain through zaa-zaa or sounds of leaves falling through hira-hira. It gives you a great impression of the scene.
In JOJO it happens with strange but memorable sounds.

By the way, how do you express kiss sound?

In JOJO it's like...

It's like a gunshot!

There are a lot of onomatopoeias in this manga other then this and I think it is fascinating stuff of JOJO.


Anyways, Thanks, Genta.

Music I love

I love music as you do. It is what nobody dislikes.
I love every genres, especially R&B while classmates in junior high, high school loved mainly Rock stuff.
And the music I'm going to introduce is Coutry music. It's not so popular in Japan.
But I'm interested in country music recently because I associate it with the beautiful scenery of huge mountain and road along countryside in North America or something. That is kind of a medication to me. Or just because it entertains me.

Here's my favorite.
Zac Brown Band: Fox on the Run (cover)

I hope you'll like it.

What does "love" mean to me

It's very hard to answer this question!
But I think it means care about others with no reason or no reward. I thought just keeping the relationship could be love. Imagining the married coulple having no talk, however, its not. should be more positive.

So I say it is care for others.
What I mean by caring about others is love starts just with care in one's mind even though it's not expressed out.
And I think it's a process like you care for others in your mind and expess it, and then it becomes love if they accept it. If they don't, that's not love.
Moreover, if you take care of someone for your benefits, that's not love.

This is my opinion. But I'm still looking for the answer.

What is "happiness" to me?

Happiness is like the meaning of life and I feel happy just with being alive. But I want to expand this story and then I say my happiness is "people".
Of course, friends, family or other people close to you are essencial for our lives. But they are not what Im talking about.
This is about connections to someone new, or even a stranger.
like someone asking me the way to a place, taking my order in a restaurant, or bringing something Ive lost to me.
I want to cherish such Ichigoichie way of thingking and that connection is very important for my or our life. It makes me feel like I'm living because people including me can't identify themselves without others.
The connection to people, even though it's tiny, can only make our lives true or real, I think.

I said I want to cherish the connection to people, but the biggest problem is I'm so shy that Im not very good at communicating with strangers!

My First Draft

Piece 1

Genre: A Personal Narrative

Draft 1 : Title: 40 weeks

Mother taught you everything. How to eat, how to drink, how to speak, how to communicate, or anything basic and very essential in your life. You have various times with her. Sometimes being scolded, sometimes arguing with her, helping her with housework, giving her a present on Mother’s day. Those are common experiences among every childhood. But is this because of the long time you have shared with her? There is one mysterious thing mothers do more than any magic any magicians make. That’s what I’m going to introduce.

It happened in my high school days

When I was a first year high school student, my parents bought me a cell phone for the first time. I was happy because all friends around me had it already. The word "First" always sounds good. Like the child who could do forward upward circling on the bar, who could ride on a bicycle for the first time. I was feeling so good. I had no friends at first, so I usually used my cell. As I was getting used to using it, as anybody did, I registered for a game web site, ringtone web site, and something for free to make the cell phone useful for your fun. However, as the proverb goes "Tadayori takaimono nashi" there is nothing more costly than something got for nothing. That something, tiny as it is, interrupted my cell phone life. At first several e-mails were sent to me from unknown senders. "I know. These are called spam messages." Strangely, it excited me. I wonder if it was because I could finally share the feeling that was common among friends who had the cell already. It’s just the way you couldn't catch up with the conversation about very popular manga. musicians or something. 

Since the entrance ceremony, I had been getting along with friends and started having fun. The better the time I had with friends, the more spam messages were sent to me. That was troublesome.

2 months later, I was enjoying the school life with certain friends in the group that I liked the best.

One spam message said "Hey, I love you. I wanna go out with you in return for 500,000 yen"

"Umm… 500,000 yen. That's not bad" I was just kidding.

Sometimes such mails were more than 100 from a variety of ladies.

"53-year-old woman who's never been dating in her life"

"33-year-old married woman who wants to cheat"

"How silly." I thought.

 They seemed all so stupid that I was mocking them. At first I ignored them because I knew it was dangerous stuff for every e-mail user. A lot of e-mails frustrated me, so I was planning to trick them in return. I was starting to reply to those e-mails.

As usual, spam messages were like

"Hi~ Do you wanna meet me? I'm so horny.”

"Yep, I think that's ok" I replied gently. Of course, there was no meaning. I just played with it.I continued such meaningless replies like yeah or it's ok with different women. I was just planning to disturb the illegal spam messengers or the companies a little bit.

One day, one e-mail was sent to me.

"You have to pay 3,000 yen"

I ignored it as usual.

But the next e-mail astonished me.

"We will sue you if you don't pay the price by the day" "Your replying costs money"

 I was so upset.

 Couldn't concentrate on any classes. Couldn't concentrate on talking with friends. Couldn't hear anything. Since everything around me was unchanged, I felt lonely. "When are they coming to me?" "How are they attacking me?" These threatening questions were coming and going through my brain over and over.

"This is ok. It's not my fault. I don't have to pay."

"I'll change my e-mail address. That's a good idea." I thought to myself.

But I was so anxious

"They know my e-mail address. They can pursue me forever if they do hacking to know my new one." I thought at the same time.

I know this is the silliest, but I imagined me on the newspaper as the first high school student who used “deaikei” web site illegally and was sued.

That was too embarrassing for me to talk with anyone about it.

Then I paid 3,000 yen in a convenience store.

When I went back home, without any words someone had put newspaper on the table about the junk mails that made you pay money you don’t have to. I thought it was too late, and I wanted to forget about that as soon as possible.

After all problems were solved, I talked about it to my friends as a funny story.

That was my experience in high school days. Silly and immature. Of course, I learned I would never do such a foolish thing, never play with a dangerous thing again. Mother knows everything about her own children. That's what I've learned more than anything. Even though you are sure you can keep it secret, your mother knows it already.

Such mystery is coming from the days that you had been inside of her, I guess.

Author's note: This is about the experience I had when I was a high shool student.

What I hate more than anything

I'm not so frequently annoyed with anything. But one thing is irritating me as usual.
That's happening at the station.
I'm going to ICU by train. I hate the station because it's so crowded and exausting me. very frequently some people going ahead of me start to find Suica in their bag just in front of the entrance gate. "Why don't you have it in your hand before you're coming in front of the gate?" "How many times is this happening to me?" Whenever that is happening, I think to myself.
The other day the worst thing was happened. one person was standing in front of the gate, using the cell phone. "How could you do that?"

In short, I hate the people who get in the way selfishly.

I'm sure that you have the same experience, don't you?

My strengths and weeknesses

Strengths

1. open-minded
I can try to understand what others said even thought it is completely different from my beliefs or opinions. race, religion, gender, class, whatever... I don't care of those elements. This strength is very fundamental but essential.
2.peaceful
I think I am kind to anyone. If someone ask me the way somewhere, I try to answer with grinning. But I very sometimes can't tell the truth in my mind to avoid an argument or quarrel. That can be my weekness.
3. jump into my curiosity quickly
I start to do something passionately and quickly. The direction of my interest is slanting, but once I get started, I do it all day long.
However, That's not lasting for long. So I want to be the person who will never be tired of something I'm interested in.


Weeknesses

1. negative
I get depressed quickly and deeply with what I've said and done or what others have said and done. It is often what you don't need to care so seriously like you couldn't reply well in English conversation during ELP. When I remember such mistake, my heart starts beating, even on a train before class.
2. bad time-manager
Basically I'm not good at managing time. You can see it from this blog which is written this time. And I'm often about to miss the deadline because I'm the person who do things tommorow which have to be done today.

I've never thought about these things. So a little bit hard but very good chance to focus on myself. And I hope I can improve those personalities.

The Most Perecious Thing in My Life

It is hard to answer or make a priority. Something around me is absolutely important because I'm made up with it. friends, family, pets... whatever. But I say my most precious thing is one experience.
In fall vacation last year, I met two foreigners, French and Ukrainian for me to speak English and for them, Japanese.

I'm so shy that I'm not good at talking with a stranger even in Japanese. But it was in English. I couldn't stop my heart beating. I was moving or shivering til the end.

Anyways, I foud it difficult to talk about dailylife in English and hear people speak English which has an accent from their country.
And I learned that speaking English or being a foreigner in Japan seems tough.
We went to a coffee shop so that we could sit and talk. When we started to talk, something was wrong. That is, a couple next to us stopped their conversation and started to listen to us! That was clear for me. And it was so awkward for me to continue speaking English.

So I can't imagine how hard it is to be a minority. Though I've never been to other countries, I think living abroad is hard and lonely. Of course it's more meaningful than that hardness, though. So I want to be kind to others, especially a minority as possible as I can. Such attitude can only save the people who are bothered because in Japan more than 30,000 people commit suicide.

A Small Trip in Tokyo

I went to Asakusa.

I've never been there before, but I was born and raised up in Tokyo. So I decided to go there to see Asakusa temple and Kaminari gate by car (my friend's car).

On way to that place, the road was so crowded that we were a bit depressed. But once we got there, it seemed exciting but strange.

There were so many foreigners. I was impressive with those people who came to Japan after that huge earth quake. And one foreigner was there who took a video for introducing Japanese traditional, famous temples or something probably.(left side in the picture below)

I should have asked him what he was doing!

actually I'm not interested in the temple, but I felt people around it hadfun and make a local community. That was impressing.

on way back home, we went by Tokyo Skytree! When I saw it far away, I thought that it was as high as Tokyo tower.

But When I was in front of it, I just noticed what it means. Skytree.

When it's completed and allow people to visit for sightseeing, I will come again.

And I want to go somewhere far next time!

The Most Beautiful Voice I Have Ever Heard

Mariah Carey!
If asked "Who is the best singer?", I will think of her first as one of the best.

She is called a singer having the 7 octaves range. (actually she doesn't)
But before she became popular, she sang as chorus in back. That is surprising and dreadful at the same time! Because she can sing better than the main singer and there are so many talented people in the US who are not put spotlight on unluckily. She has been like stripping recently, and some fans hate that.

Anyways, I just say VOICE! Voice is all about M.Carey.

Characterisctics
・The most remarkable point for me is middle or head register (voice between normal voice and falsetto).
・So husky like a piece of string is tense and about to cut off. about to break but never.
・Very mellow and sad but heartwarming
・Very powerful modal voice (normal voice)
・Whistle voice (one of the great characteristics of her voice)

And I introduce her song to prove her voice is the most beautiful.

Circles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AhZINGj--8
Hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhLGAmN8Bf4&feature=fvst  very popular song!



I hope you will like both of two songs!!

Two Psycological Movies I Want To Recommend

I like watching movies! One presentation  reminded me of two movies.

One is "es". The plot is that 24 people who participate in one psychological experiment for money are divided into 12 guards and 12 prisoners and live in jail for a week or more. They have fun at first because they can get much money just by living in each role even though they are in jail. But they are getting into the roles gradually like they are really in jail.

This is fiction but based on the fact of the experiment conducted in Stanford university.

Group psychology is sometimes so scary. Even though each person is ordinary and thinks their minds are under control, they are not because group psychology is not a simple total of people's minds. As a result, people can come up with something the individual from them doesn't ever. In addition, a role has huge influence on people. Even a very gentle person could be a beast in certain environment. So I thought the political mistake happened before people in that age knew it. And such fear comes to us suddenly.

Another is "The Wave". This is like a high school version of "es". Is it possible to do autocracy like Hitler?

That is the first question in one class of one high school. In the start of the experiment of it, students have little passion. But once the teacher as a dictator arranges things and orders the students to do them, his students are being an army and going too extreme.

Like "es", you can also see how people are subjected to the situation in this movie. Although the situation in this movie is open physically because this is a story in a high school class, I felt it was much close mentally. That is because a student can't escape if he/she wants to.

If you have a chance, watch!!

Who Am I ?

Who am I?
This question is so fundamental that it is hard to answer.
My basic profile is ; I was born in 1991, December 26th, and am 19 years old. Blood type B (maybe, I've never checked it). 5 kids of 2 older brothers and a older sister and younger one and me.

My personality is just free. And I always take my time. So not being free makes me nervous. I was sometimes absent from school and went for a walk or cycling around home when I was a high school student so that I could be free from any trouble. Actually, That is true even NOW. I love peace and freedom!!

I wll share my slides later.

Why did I decide to take this course? Do I like to write? Why or why not?

1. Why did I decide to take this course?
First, I decided to take this course because I took Mark's ARW class last year and thought him interesing and good. That is most important point for me because if I don't like the teacher, I will be bored of the class. Second, the reason I took this course is it is unique and made me want to think "who am I ?" again. Apart from other courses, this course is about more personal and subjective thing, or us. That differentiated this course from others. Whether I want to wrte about myself or not, I hope this will be a great chance to think again and improve myself.

2, Do I like to write? Why or why not?
No. Writing is just an assignment and used to bother me. First of all, I don't come up with the first letter in the first sentense. I coudn't write as other students could. And Basically, I'm not confident with something theoretical like if I think it's coherent, it's not from the eyes of others. So Academis essays were so hard for me.Whatever and whenever I write, I worry about if I can properly. That is trouble I've been faced with. Thus, I don't like to write.
But this couse is not quite academic, so it may change my image to writing hopefully.