William Shakespeare
He was born in April 23 in 1564, and he died in April 23 in 1616. He was 52-year-old at that time. It is so rare that he was born and died the same day, don’t you think? His hometown is Stratford-upon-Avon. These days, you can see this house as a famous sightseeing spot. In 1582, November 27, He married Ann Hasaway. At that time, He was 18-year-old and Ann was 26-year-old. In 1582, He had a daughter named Susanna. In 1587, when he was 23-year-old, he moved to London and joined a theatrical company. As for scenario, there are 37 of his works. They can be classified into three categories; play of history, comedy, and tragedy. As for tragedy, most famous works are “Macbeth”, ”Hamlet”, “King Lear”, “Othello”. Many of you know “Romeo and Juliet”, I guess. Well, does anybody know that there is some King Lear’s line in The Beetles’ song? It is obvious that The Beetles is a really famous and popular English band. We can find his line in their CD album named “MAGICAL MYSTRY TOUR.” The name of the song is “I AM The Walrus.” This is those lines.　“If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body”. “O! Untimely death. Death! “　This is really interesting!!! Don’t you think??

Learning from Mongolia
As you know, I watched the video about Mongolia in last class. There were a lot of interest thing in the video.
"Mongolia has no modern cities only wide meadows in there." This was my stereotype about Mongolia. However, there were so many modern buildings in Mongolia in the video. Of course, there were large plains covroed grasses. I was so surprised about this. I saw Yurts. I already have known the house. I had watched a NHK TV Program about nomads about 3 years ago. "Pao" is the name of them in Chinese, and "gel" is also the name of them in Mongolia. I have never known the special singing style. I don't know how I should spell it. A male performer produced harmonic sounds from deep throat, releasing several notes at once. It is really amazing!!
Yet, the most amazing thing was the performance that killed a sheep. It was so rare thing because we cannot see such a way of killing animal in Japan. Somebady thought that was a very terrible thing, I am sure. However, I thing it is very important to show such a thing to everyone, especially children. It'll teach a value of life. We can learn how precious lives are from it. I could learned a lot of thing from Mongolians.

KOREA
I like Asia because I am also Asian. I want to learn Asian languages. I am studying Korean little by little by my self. Today I will talk about Korean.
Surprisingly, there are a lot of similarities between Korean and Japanese. For example, both of them have Kanji idioms, honorific words, and postposition words etc. Well, “Shogakkou” stands for “elementary school” in Japanese, and also Korean say so.
People use Hangul in Korea. Hangul express sounds of Korean. There are two types of Hangul; one is consonant + vowel, the other is consonant + vowel + consonant. Korean are made up 10 basic vowels, 11 synthesis vowel, 14 basic consonant, and 5 double consonant.
I studied a few Korean words. For example,
*“an nyon haseyo” = “hello”,
*“anyo”= “NO”,
*”nee”=”YES”,
*“apoji” =”father”,
*“omoni”=”mother”,
*”tehakusenn”=”university student”
By the way, I found that there are some words that sounds like same as Japanese. For example,
*”Kasu”=”singer” # (in Japanese)Kasyu
*”Kyosa”=”teacher” # Kyoushi
*”Wisa”=”doctor” # Isha etc…..
There are a lot of interesting things in Korea. I want to visit Korea someday. I want to learn Korean culture more and more. Today’s blog was little difficult I think. If there are anybody who knows about Korea well, please tell me about the country. I think I can understand Korea although I cannot eat very spicy foods. Thanks for your reading!!

Prejudice about China

As you know, I really love Chine. Yet, actually I don’t know much about China. I learned China’s physical features, economy, politics, and environment, etc in CORE class.
I have been learned Chinese history for almost 6or 7 years. So I know about Chinese history, maybe. When I was a junior high school student, I was not interested in China and any other Asian countries at all. I had a lot of interests in western or American culture. So I had a lot of stereotype on China at that time.
For example, I believed that there are a lot of bamboo forests in China and many Giant Pandas live in there. There are no deserts and also no modern cities. People live in very big but wild area. Many people live with cows and no machine in there etc.
However it was strongly wrong!!!!! There are few Giant Pandas in China. They are so rare creatures that need to be protected. And there ate huge deserts and many modern cities in China, actually. Many people cultivate their farm and use many machines. I was so stupid fellow!!!!! I thought no knowledge is really intimidating.
Now I don’t have so much knowledge about China yet but I have a lot of Chinese friends in AIU. And I am learning about China and Chinese from them almost every day. I hope I can understand the country more and more. And I wish I can visit China someday absolutely!!

Good strategies for learning English!!


“?How do you think what the difference between EAP Level 3 students is and Level 1 students?”

One day, in the communication class, our great communication teacher Mr. Hemmi said to us. The answer is “vocabulary skill” I was so shocked at the facts. Because that is really true!! That is why I cannot speak and read and write and listen to English smoothly. Especially I am not good at reading and listening English.

So, I will think about how to improve my English reading and listening skills.

I think that reading “Timed Reading” and preparation of “Text book” are good way to improve my reading skills. I think reading English sentences constantly is the most useful strategies. Actually, I wasn’t able to catch up with “Timed Reading” However I will do my best from now!!

And communicate with International students in English is good strategies to improve my English listening skills. And why don’t we talk in English in daily life?? Not only in class!! When we talk in English we should pay attention new vocabularies which friends say. We also should use some new vocabularies or expressions that we learned in class. It is good review, I think.

Anyway, we have to get high score on the TOEFL test. It is so intimidating!! However I will do my best. And everyone please tells me your great strategies and shall we share them??

Suppose I lived in India now...

If I live in India now, how would I life be different from my current life? I there are a lot of big difference between Japanese culture and Indian culture, I think. I would not use left hand during eating. Because I heard that people in India think the left hand is dirty hand. Fortunately, I am not left-handed person so I think maybe I can use right hand very easily during eating.
What is more, I will go to Movie Theater to watch Bollywood movies. I am interested in India’s movies. And I really love to watch movies. India’s movies are so cheaper than Japanese.
And I also have interest in cloths. I heard that Women in India ware Saree because of their religion. I would ware that too!! And actually, I want to ware that.
As for food, I will eat curry a lot maybe. And I have to eat some spicy food. I cannot eat any spicy food now. I hope I can eat spicy food in India. But I have to pay attention to our food or water. Because I am not used to India’s food. So, maybe I would have stomachache or some bat things in my body.
And I will have a religion in India. I cannot write everything down here. But I want to live in India and experience India’s culture.

CHINA

Ni Hao!!(Hello). Hai Hao Ma?(How are you?)Wo shi Tu-u Youmei.(My name is Tsuchiya Tomomi.) I will talk about China today. The capital is Beijing. It is in the northern east part of China. Its population is 1,273,300,000. Its land mass is very large and 9,572,899sq. Km. Major import and export are machinery. Language is Chinese but there are a lot of dialects in China. Its letters are Kanji and generally speaking, all of them have 4~5 accents. It is so difficult for foreign people. Chinese economics is capitalism but politics is socialism. This contradiction is one of the problems in China.
People use bicycles as transportation. But these days cars are increasing in urban area.
As for animals, ducks, water buffalo, giant panda etc are very famous, I think. Famous Chinese foods are, for example, Beijing duck, Chin jao rous, and nyu nai dofu and so on. Tea, Baichu(Very strong alcohol), silk, and pottery are also famous.
There many historical spot and Famous spot in China. Like the Great Wall of China, Shikinnjou, Kokyuu and so forth. These are connected to Chinese History so deeply. China has very long history and I want to study it. Because I think we can refer it to our future.
There are a lot of problems in China. The environmental pollution is attended its developments. And there are many gaps between the rich and the poor. Also, there are very complicated issues between Japan and China Because of many historical affairs. I want to study about China and I want to be a bridge between Japan and China and the world.

The Desertification

Do you know what is the “Desertification”? Its definition is the process by which useful land, especially farmland, changes into desert. The causes are farming and graze animals and other human’s behaviors. Anyway, the biggest cause is Increasing population. There are deserts along the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Some deserts are formed by sand. But mostly they are formed by rocks and gravel. Deserts cover 12 percents of the earth land. The biggest desert in the world is The Sahara desert, for example.
How does the Desertification spread the world? For example, farmers cut forests (This is called the Deforestation.) and many graze animals eat meadow. So, there will be less trees and grass in that place. Besides, Rain wash away and wind blow away the soil. It is called erosion as you know. So there will be less fertile land. As a result of that process, desert will increase.
It causes a lot of bad influences. For example, it destroys ecosystem in the forests. And droughts will cause. In 1968~73, There was a really big drought in Southern part of the Sahara desert in Africa. More than 100,000 people in that area starved. I think that if desertification advances in this pace, lack of forests and lack of foods will be more serious issues. It will be hard to survive for people in the world in the future.
What should we do to protect the world from the Desertification? There is some actions to do so. For example, Green the deserts that plant trees in deserts by NGO, some companies, government. Make irrigation system by NGO or ODA. I think there is something that we can do soon. We shouldn’t do waste of paper and we should do recycle waste papers. And I think we can also do a campaign to raise funds. I will try to do something to sustain Greens. 　　　　　　　　　　　　

Tropical Grasslands...Savannas

Tropical grasslands, often called savannas. These are licated inland at or near the equator. The bioms said so. Savannas are in Africa,Right? To tell the truth, I don't know much about this biom. However, this biom is really interesting for me. Because there are a lot of big differences between Savannas and Japanese biom.
Japanese biom is Temperate forests. Generally speaking, there are four seasons in Japan. But, we can see only two sesons in Savannas. That is the wet seasons and the dry seasons. The temperature in there is always hot so the seasons are dicided by rainfall. In Savannas, almost no rain fall during the dry season. This is amazing thing, don't you think??!! We have a lot of rains and snow in Japan. We even have rainy season. There are many words expressing the types of rain. Do you have any ideas? For example, Samidare, Kirisame, and Niwakaame etc. Actually I don't like rainy days. If I visit Savannas, I want to go there in the dry season. I think it is gonna be fun.
As you know, there are so many animals in there. Maybe you have ever watched some document VTR on TV, don't you? I saw many the story of Savannas. Like Lion's child raising and Cheetah's hunting etc. The life in Savannas is really severe...I thought. There is a very big ecosystem in there. If I have a chance to go to Africa, I want to see the real Savannas.

Ｓｈａｒｉｎｇ　Ｇｌｏｂａｌｉｚａｔｉｏｎ‘ｓ　Ｇａｉｎｓ
～What can you do to help spread the fruits of globalization more evenly around the world?～

　Everyone knows the fact that there are wide gaps between rich countries and poor countries in the world. However, how many people really know the reasons why these gaps caused?? I think that there are so many complicated reasons in poor countries. And there are a lot of vicious circles, I think. For example, wars caused lack of educations, lack of jobs and so on. And then, people in that area cannot learn any technologies because there is no place to learn them. And they must do some easy jobs and they have to depend on industrialized nations. Besides, they cannot get much money. So they cannot build any schools or factories. This is one of example of the vicious circles of poor countries.
I consider that peace is the most important thing to share globalization’s gains. Anyway, industrialized countries should do something to help people in poor countries or developing countries on educations. I believe that good educations will help these people. If we teach some technologies, they can produce their foods and some goods they need to live. And maybe they can get more benefits, I think.

"Think globally and act locally."

To think globally, we should have a lot of knowledge about the world, I think. There are a lot of is issues in the world such as wars.
These days, there are many activities to help other poor countries all over the world. For example, “White Band” is one of them. Do you know the activities? One person dies in three seconds in the world. Here is a picture of “White Band”. This is three hundred yen each one. They collect money and spend a part of them to help people lives in poor country. And there are a lot of fund-raising in many convenience store and so on.　If I find some fund-raising box, I always try to put some coins into the box.
And, whenever I read some books about war or some conflict, I always think what shall I do. I want to do some fund-rising activities with some friends in AIU. I want to collect a lot of money and send it to some poor countries.
In the future, I want to teach Japanese and Japanese culture in foreign countries. And I want to keep studying about other countries. Anyway, The most important thing for the saying : “think globally and act locally” is having a lot of knowledge about the world.

My Favorites/

Hi everyone!! Today I will tell you about my favorite things. I have many favorite things.
I really love pigs!! I have a lot of stuffed toy pigs. They are so cute. And I will show you their picture. The middle one which is a little bit dirty is the most important pig. She is same years old as me. My parents bought me her when I was born. Well, I am sorry this picture is a little hard to see.
And I love to read magazines. My favorite magazine is SPUR and VOGUE. Do any one know these magazine?? There are a lot of fashion models in these magazines. I like to see them because they are so beautiful!! They have individual faces and so slender body. I always think "Oh, I wish I were one of them." My most favorite fashion model is Gemma Ward. She has a pretty doll face and so slim body. She belong exclusively to BURBERRY. This is a very famous fashion brand. These days I cannot buy SUPR or VOGUE. Because there is no book store around aiu. I am so busy that I cannot have time to go to IEON. If I have free time, I want to get new one.
By the way, Other my favorite thing is tea. I like tea collection. I have a lot of tea in my room. My fvorite tea shop is LUPICIA in Sendai.I lived in Sendai last year and I went to LUPICIA many time. There are many kinds of tea. I love Jasmine tea very much. If you wanna try to drink them, Please come to my room whenever you want.