Christmas songs

Actually, it's not that easy to find Christmas songs that people can use to learn. Many of them use unusual vocabulary ("Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly"?!) or have references to adult concepts ("I'm all lit up like a Christmas tree" means he's drunk), or are just too hard for non-native kids to understand. I guess that's why "Last Christmas" by Wham! is so popular here - it's not too hard to understand, and the lyrics are not too obviously adult-oriented. That song is not popular at all in the US, though. I had never heard it before I moved to Fujinomiya!

It seems like the Japanese versions of these songs are a lot more kid-oriented. I could be wrong, though.

Santa Claus is coming to town

The English version goes like this:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good, for goodness' sake!

I never realized this before, but Santa is actually pretty scary! I don't know the Japanese version of this song, but I hope it's not the same as this.

Spuriousness

There are many interesting words to describe logic in English. One of my favorites is "spurious". If you look this word up in an E-J dictionary, you might get 誤った or 偽の, but these do not capture the true meaning of the word. Spuriousness is a very specific kind of mistake.

Basically, spuriousness is the logical mistake of assuming one thing causes another when it actually does not. For example, consider these premises:

A) More crimes are committed during summer than winter.
B) More suntan lotion is used during summer than winter.

Some people might see these facts and claim that therefore, suntan lotion causes crime, or that criminals use more suntan lotion. This is "spurious logic", or assuming a causal relationship when it doesn't exist. In fact, it's more likely that both are caused by the heat - a 3rd variable not mentioned in either premise. Of course, you would need to actually run an experiment to verify that.

In essence, A and B happening around the same time doesn't necessarily mean that A causes B or B causes A. They could both be caused by C, D, E, or some combination of different factors.

To further illustrate, consider the following premises, which I have actually heard a few times:

A) Japanese have trouble pronouncing certain sounds in English.
B) Japanese look different from most people from English-speaking countries.

The spurious conclusion is that Japanese people's looking different affects their ability to pronounce those words. But actually, people from all over Asia learn to speak perfect English when they or their descendents are raised in the English-speaking world. The more logical, less spurious conclusion is that people's ability to pronounce words in any language depends on what language they speak as they grow up. This conclusion is quite an obvious one, but spurious logic sometimes leads people to accept another, incorrect conclusion instead.

Cold

Here are some more colorful expressions for "It's cold".

-It's split nippy.
-It's freezing. （凍るほど冷たい・寒い）
-It's frigid.　（非常に冷たい・寒い）
-It's colder than a witch's tit. （とても下品でもよく知られる表現）

You can also use the word "cold" in expressions like this:

-He got cold feet.（彼はおじけづいた）
-He quit smoking cold turkey.　（彼は急にタバコをきっぱりやめた）

There are many ways to use the words "cold", "hot", "warm", and "cool". Try looking them up and finding a few for yourselves!

Louis Vuitton only designed one thing

As far as I can tell, 90% of Louis Vuitton's sales are various shapes of bags with the same pattern printed on them. Can he really be called a designer? It seems like he's only designed one thing, which is a gold "LV" on a brown background. At least Calvin Klein, Gucci, Chanel etc. all have a variety of designs and products. The success of the Louis Vuitton brand is a mystery to me.

Flexible English

English is a flexible language in that pretty much any word can be used as any part of speech. There's not just one way all verbs have to be spelled, nor is there any one way all adjectives have to look. For example, take a look at the word "walk".

I'm going to walk. 　(自動詞）
I'm going to go for a walk.　（名詞）
I walked my dog.　　（他動詞）

Or how about the word "cold":

I'm cold. （形容詞）
I have a cold.　　（名詞、「風邪」）
I don't like the cold in winter.　　（名詞、「寒さ」）

Sometimes the place a word appears in a sentence, and the context that surrounds it, are the only way to determine what exactly the word means.

Hawaiian Host

I love chocolate. I love nuts. Therefore, I REALLY love chocolate covered nuts. In California I always ate all the chocolate-and-nut Christmas candy. In Japan you don't see my favorite brand of chocolate-and-nut candy, but you sometimes see Hawaiian Host candy, which is usually chocolate with macadamia nuts. People like to give it as a souvenir after a trip to Hawaii. Some of our students have given us Hawaiian Host candy a few times. I really enjoy it!

Cold!

It's finally the time of year again where I have to wear at least 3 layers before I even feel comfortable. I'm sure it's not easy for anyone, but it's especially hard for people like me who grew up in very warm climates!

This is probably a very good time to consider a vacation to Australia, where it's currently summer.

Studio

Last weekend, I spent a couple hours in "Brown Sugar", a music studio/rehearsal space located underground along the bypass. The microphones are all rusty, and the drum set looks a bit like a tornado hit it - but I don't play the drums anyway, and I'm a lousy singer. I just had fun playing guitar as loud as I could.

The Days Are Just Packed

Doesn't it seem like just yesterday it was August and we were on Obon vacation? I don't know exactly why, but time is going by faster and faster these days. Maybe it's because our schedule is much fuller than it was a year or especially two years ago. It doesn't give us a lot of time to reflect!

My Favorite Movie

It's really hard to decide what my favorite movie is. It used to be Willow, but that was when I was 11 years old. When I was in high school I loved Aliens, but I don't really watch gory movies much anymore. When I was in college, I liked Three Kings, but I don't think I've seen it even once since I graduated.

So what is my favorite movie now? I guess it's School of Rock. Maybe I'm just partial to movies about crazy teachers.

Plastic Guns

I'm dressed as a cowboy for Halloween, as I'm sure most of you have noticed. I even have small plastic guns hanging from my belt. Obviously, they're toys. You can't buy real guns in Japan - but did you know that you also can't buy real-looking plastic guns in the US?

The plastic guns I have right now are silver with black handles. They look real, especially from a distance. Toy guns in the US are almost always some kind of neon orange or other bright color. The reason is that if a toy gun looks real, people might think you have a real gun, and might be frightened - if they're police officers, they might even shoot you. Because some people actually do have real guns, all the toy guns are painted very colorfully so that no one confuses the two. Therefore, I'd have a hard time putting together this costume in the US - unless I wanted to be a neon cowboy.

Eve

Many of you probably know the word "eve", from "Christmas Eve" or "New Year's Eve". Did you know that "Halloween" was also originally "All Hallow's Eve"? Yes, there are many "eves" amongst the holidays of the English-speaking world. I suppose "All Hallow's Day" is November 1st, then, though we don't celebrate anything on that day anymore. Maybe people used to do something then!

I could manage to be able to...

Many people ask me about this grammar point:

"I could play soccer"
"I could ride a bike"
"We could eat barbecue"

Actually, it translates into 「サッカーすることができた」 in Japanese, but is used in a different way in English.

"could" usually means "I had the ability to" or "It was possible to", and doesn't say whether you actually did or not. People often use it like this:
"When I was young, I could play with my friends until it was dark",
but NOT like this:
"Yesterday, I could eat dinner at my favorite restaurant",
because "could" doesn't say whether you actually DID eat there.

Also, you can use "could" to talk about possible future plans. If you say "We could go to Jusco", it sounds more like 「ジャスコに行くのはどう？」, NOT like 「ジャスコへ行くことができた」. You use "could" in this way when you want to make suggestions about things you might want to do in the future.

Usually, context makes it clear whether you're talking about the past or making a suggestion with "could".

Past: "I could get candy for 5 cents when I was a boy."
Future: "I could get some candy for you, if you want any."
Past: "He could go to his favorite store any time he wanted to, until it closed 5 years ago."
Future: "He could go to Uniqlo, if he wants cheap clothes."

Are you able?

English has a convenient way of expressing that you "can do" something in one word. All you need to do is attach "able" to the end of a verb, and presto! It's a new word.

For example:

I can fax this. -> This is faxable.

You can move this. -> This is movable.

No one can speak of this horror. -> This is an unspeakable horror!

There are some exceptions though, as always:

eat -> edible
see -> visible
hear -> audible
drink -> potable

And some more I don't have time to think of now.

Musical Instruments

When I was younger, my mom used to make me take piano lessons. I quit that as soon as I could. When I was in elementary school, I started learning to play trombone. I kept playing that until I was in college. Trombone was fun, but I couldn't play it forever - especially not in a crowded dormitory. I certainly couldn't play it in Yatate or Fujimigaoka.

Nowadays I only play acoustic and electric guitar. They're fun to play, and you can play them quietly if you don't want to disturb your neighbors. In fact, I think this is one of the main reasons guitars are such popular instruments - you can play them at almost any volume you want. I've played guitars at all kinds of volumes - from barely audible to deafeningly loud! Playing guitar is fun no matter how loud or quiet it is.

When it rains, it pours.

Of all the bad luck!

I feel sorry for all you kids who had your "undokai" sports festivals today... better luck tomorrow!

For our 6th grade students, this is the last of these events before going to junior high school next year. I hope you make some good memories tomorrow (or Monday).

28

I'm 28 years old today. All of our elementary and preschool students will have to use a new number for me from today until September 19th, 2008.

When Is Fall Coming?

I thought we had finally hit autumn, when the weather suddenly gets hot again...

I'm looking forward to a nice, cool October and November. December won't be much fun, but at least there's Christmas.

Acoustic Guitar

When I was in high school, I played electric guitar a lot. In college, I also played electric guitar. When I moved to Japan, I couldn't take more than one guitar. I decided to take my acoustic guitar, since I could use that in my English classes. Therefore, I didn't play electric guitar for awhile after I moved to Japan. Nowadays, I have an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar both in Japan, so I can play either one. The acoustic is on the wall in the classroom. The electric - well, I never show that to my students. :)

Political Shows

I really liked political talk shows back when I lived in the US. I still try to watch them over the Internet now, but I'm not really as interested as I used to be. Nowadays, I try to spend a bit more time following Japanese politics - but there's a lot to learn! For example, the Prime Minister can be replaced whenever politics dictate, as opposed to in the US when Presidents always have 4-year terms. The constant resigning of cabinet officers is new to me too, although it happens to resemble the current US administration. Perhaps these administrations are both unique in that respect. I wonder whose will last longer?

Rotten Tomatoes

There's a website called Rotten Tomatoes where you can read many reviews of new movies. I use it to decide what new movies I want to see. According to the site, The Bourne Ultimatum is a pretty good movie. Maybe I'll see that when it comes out in Japan... I wonder when that is?

Check it out: Rotten Tomatoes

The Countryside

I'm sure I'd like to live in a more rural environment, if only there were fewer insects. I like the quiet and solitude, but I can't deal with spiders as big as my hands routinely stopping by my house. Yes, spiders are not insects, I know. In fact, spiders EAT most insects, which I should be happy about. But none of this brings me peace of mind when I see one of those many-legged monsters walking about. The only positive thing I can say about them is that they're not centipedes.

Harry Potter

I saw the new Harry Potter movie this weekend.

It was OK. I can't get into the Harry Potter series so much, though. Maybe I'm just too old. Some people say the books are much better than the movies - so maybe I should give the books a try. Maybe I'll find some interesting passages to use in class.

Fuji-Q Thailand

Over the long weekend, I took a trip to Fuji-Q Highland. They have some very fun roller coasters - I think my favorite was "Eejanaika". They also had a promotion called "Fuji-Q Thailand" running, and there were little booths selling Thai food out in front of the roller coaster "Fujiyama". Their food was really good, so I ended up going there 3 different times during that one day. I enjoyed the rides more than the food, but only barely!

In Hot Water...

Almost no one has hot drinks during class anymore! It's too hot to drink coffee now. Maybe we should just serve ice cubes...

In English, you can say "I'm in hot water" when you mean "I'm in trouble". Maybe because of the hot weather, everyone is "in hot water", and so no one wants to DRINK hot water. That makes sense.

Phoenix Wright: Attorney at Law

I recommend this game to anyone who wants to study casual English. The first two games in this series, which is called "Gyakuten Saiban" here, have both English and Japanese text, which you can choose. I'm playing the fourth one right now in Japanese, and it's full of good vocabulary. Beginners might think it's too hard, but Intermediate and Advanced students can probably enjoy it and learn from it.

Rain, rain, go away...

It's raining cats and dogs every day now! I'm glad I don't have to commute very far to work.

California is basically a desert, so it doesn't get much rain. Actually, many people think California is too dry! Many people use skin cream and lip balm. If you don't, your skin might start to itch! Hawaii's weather is more like Japan's. Take vacations in Hawaii if you don't want itchy skin!

Curry Soda?!

Yesterday, we got a very unusual gift from one of our students: curry soda! It looks like lemon soda, but it smells and tastes like Indian curry. I can't say it's absolutely delicious, but it's definitely interesting. According to that student, the company that made this soda also makes wasabi and tofu-flavored soda. I'd like to try them. I'm curious!

Greetings!

They say you can learn a lot about a culture by its unusual vocabulary. There are many words in Japanese that are difficult to express in English - including most 挨拶, which itself is hard to express in English. Of course, English has common words to use as greetings too, but most English speakers don't feel any pressure to use the same ones other people use. In other words, they're not really standardized like Japanese 挨拶. Therefore, words like ご苦労様 or お願いします don't have single, direct translations. In fact, one fun part of speaking English is finding your own way to say those things.

If I drew some kind of general conclusion from this, I'd say that Japanese society is more formal than most English-speaking societies.

I Love Rock 'n Roll

There are many rock fans among our students. I wonder why? I like rock too, but I didn't know it was this popular!

Recently, I've been listening to Deep Purple. Their guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, is excellent. He has a new band now, which plays Renaissance-style folk music. They're interesting, but they're not as good as DP!

Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh is quite popular in Japan, but here, his name is just "Pooh". When I was a child, I didn't like Winnie the Pooh. I liked cartoons with superheroes and action. Now, since I'm a teacher, I like Winnie the Pooh more - but I still like superheroes more than talking bears.

English Language Programs

Almost every night, you can see some kind of program for English students on TV. This might surprise you, but I watch them too. My favorite is the Columbia University ESL show on Tuesdays on NHK. Unfortunately, there are many bad English programs as well. Usually, these shows have a professor who explains grammar points, a young woman who listens to him and sometimes repeats after people, and also a native speaker of English who helps people with pronunciation.

I don't like these shows because they usually have too much lecturing by the professor, and not enough actual English. There is a short skit, and then 10 minutes of boring grammar explanation. That's not really much English, is it? The grammar points might be useful, but the shows have too much explaining and analysis in Japanese, and not enough of people actually speaking English. If you watch these shows, try to practice the grammar point yourself instead of just listening to the professor talk about it.

Costco

Anna and I go to Costco about once every 3 months. When we go there, we always get a big, greasy slice of pizza for lunch, and then go shopping for anything we need. We often buy supplies for school, but sometimes we also get things like imported tortilla chips or mango salsa. Last year, I bought a big bag of pine nuts to use in pasta, and I still have some of them! The packages are huge.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, search for コストコ with Yahoo! Japan. I recommend everyone to go there at least once!

Is English Hard?

Linguists tend to consider English grammatically simple - i.e., there are no gendered nouns, and verbs only conjugate a couple of ways. Contrast this with a language like Finnish, which has a legendarily difficult verb/noun agreement system, not to mention pronunciation which non-natives find mystifying. Japanese also lacks gendered nouns, and verb conjugation follows simple and universal rules, but learning to write is pretty much a lifelong struggle. So what are the hard points of English?

I think spelling is one of them. Like kanji, English spelling rules are often case-by-case, with no obvious principle governing them. Think about it - why are "bus" and "busy" pronounced so differently, while "bluff" and "tough" are strangely pronounced the same.

More Pasta!

I learned some new things about pasta!

First, I learned that adding balsamic vinegar to tomato sauce tastes excellent. My brother sent me some balsamic vinegar from Italy a few years ago, and I recently started using that vinegar in my marinara sauce. It makes the sauce taste tangy and a bit sour. I like it a lot. I also like to dip baguette into my balsamic vinegar, and then into olive oil. That's good too.

Recently, I haven't been boiling my pasta in water. I've been adding it directly into the sauce, and cooking it there! It takes a bit more time, but when I do this, I don't have to use an extra pot. Plus, the pasta absorbs the flavor of the sauce. I had no idea that there were so many ways to make pasta!

My First Car

My first car ever was a Honda Accord LXi from 1989 or so... I got it when I was 17, and drove it to school every day. When my dad bought a new car a few years later, I got his old one, which was a Toyota Cressida. It was fun to drive and had a lot of luxuries like a CD player and a 6-cylinder engine, but it eventually broke down. After that, I inherited my mom's old (but not as old as the first one) Honda Accord. This one lasted until I moved to Japan, and I haven't bought a new car since then.

Marinara Sauce

I like marinara sauce, and make it almost twice a week for my pasta. What do you put in your marinara sauce? I use:

Garlic
Onions
Olive Oil
Red Wine
Basil
Oregano
Tomatoes (of course) - fresh and canned

I noticed that if you fry the garlic and onions in the olive oil before you add the tomatoes, it tastes very good. Lately, I've been adding eggplant too. Eggplants absorb the flavor of the sauce very well.

99-cent Stores

It's very convenient that our school is across the street from Seria, one of several "hyakuen shoppu" in Fujinomiya. Of course, we have similar stores in the US, but they're different in subtle ways. In my experience, 99-cent stores in the US carry more food and toys; whereas in Japan, these types of stores carry lots of dishes and random household goods such as dish detergent and cutlery. I didn't usually go to 99-cent stores when I lived in the US; since I didn't like most of the food, and I was too old for the toys. I do visit them when I go back on vacation, though.

New Carpet!

Take a look around next time you come to our school - the carpets are all new! We went to Jumbo Encho in Fuji and bought a lot of those tile carpet squares. They're more expensive than regular carpet, but we can replace them more easily if someone spills a drink on them. Still - please don't spill drinks on them!

Some of our students went to live abroad last month. We miss them, and hope they're having a good time. If those students are reading this from England and the US, "Hello!" from Anna and I!

Break Time

It's that time of the year - the too-brief intermission between winter and summer in Japan, which features temperatures that neither require 5 layers of clothes nor constant air conditioning. The flowers are pretty too, but mostly I enjoy the newfound heat, at least before it gets too hot again sometime in June.

Oh, and it feels a lot like winter in my hometown. That's a little nostalgic bonus.

Olive Oil

I love olive oil. I use it in everything, including pasta, curry, and mashed potatoes. It's good for you too, so you don't need to worry about eating too much of it. It's also an important food in Italian, Greek and Spanish culture - but my favorite olive oil is actually the Turkish kind you can buy in Gyoumu Suupaa. Give it a try.

Anna's Sick!

Anna gets very bad headaches sometimes, which we call "migraines". I hope you all don't feel too strange with only me here! I think she'll be back tomorrow, so please be patient until then.

Golden Week is Coming!

What am I doing for Golden Week? I'm not sure yet. I want to visit my cousin in Matsuyama, but that's so far away. Of course, I would like to visit California too, but that's even farther, and expensive too. I have a friend in Yamagata I could visit, but he works a lot and probably doesn't have time to hang around with me. I could also visit my old friends and co-workers in Hamamatsu, but they're probably leaving to go somewhere else during Golden Week. Plus, everything is too crowded during Golden Week! Maybe I'll just stay home and enjoy the silence.

The OC

I finally rented a DVD of this show, "The OC", from GEO. I hope nobody thinks that that's what my old neighborhood looks like. The show takes place in Newport Beach, which is a very wealthy part of Orange County. Now, I'm not saying that Orange County is poor, because it's not. It's more like a sea of averageness with islands of extreme wealth here and there. Newport Beach is one of those wealthy places where celebrities and businesspeople live. It's actually very close to the university Anna and I went to, but most students can't afford to spend a lot of time there.

If the producers of "The OC" had decided to film it in Garden Grove or Santa Ana instead of Newport Beach, it would have been a very different show.

Vagabond

I sometimes read manga to practice my Japanese, and just for fun. Vagabond is my favorite, although it doesn't really have much speaking, just yelling and screaming! Musashi is a very skilled fighter - I wonder what he would do if he were alive today. Maybe he would compete in the Olympics, or maybe he'd just be a very deadly sushi chef!

Cherry Blossoms

It's that time of year again, when the landscape is covered in a pretty shade of light pink. It's not that I don't like the flowers, but I think I look forward to spring mostly for the warmth, not the scenery. It's nice not to have to wear a jacket indoors anymore.

Since my brother lives there, I found out that Washington, D.C. also has cherry blossoms. I'm not sure why, but it sure is beautiful. The US generally doesn't have as many events tied to the 4 seasons as Japan does, but if I lived in Washington D.C. (or Kyoto, probably) I'd definitely look forward to spring.

Check them out!

Three young words

We were all children at some point in our lives, and often look back at that time fondly. Many of us who are lucky enough to work with children admire their fearlessness and honesty at the same time that we might be annoyed with their immaturity. So what do we call adults who sometimes remind us of children in either good or bad ways? Here are a few ideas:

For someone who is open and adventurous, with a sense of wonder about the world, you can use the world "childlike", as in "She has a childlike honesty with all the people she knows."

For someone who is a bit unruly, rude or even simple-minded, try the word "childish". For example, "I'm tired of listening to your childish jokes."

Last, to capture the same mood as "childish" but give yourself an even greater sense of authority and condescension, try "juvenile", like "I don't care for your juvenile attitude."

We all know some people like this, so give them a try!

How are you?

Upon their first real-world English experience, many English students are surprised by the variety of greetings people use. In the world of 英会話, the standard is "How are you?", but this is only the beginning.

Just by making a few small changes to "How are you?", you can make a great palette of greetings to choose from.

"How are you doing?" ("I'm great")
"How have you been?" ("I've been great")
"How are things?" ("They're fine")

If you want to be more casual, try one of the following.

"What's up?" ("Not much")
"How's it going?" ("Pretty well")
"What's happenin'?"

Among young people, you will also hear "Sup" often. This is short for "Wassup", which is short for "What's up". Give it a try if you want to sound like you're saying 「うっっっす」 in English. You probably shouldn't use this one at work!

What Japanese food do you like?

Since I get asked this question a lot, I'll put my answer up here for all to see:

I LOVE miso, soba, tofu, all kinds of sesame dressing, daifuku, and some kinds of ramen. I also love kimchee, but that's not technically Japanese food, is it?

I like houtou, udon, some Japanese curries, zenzai, Shingen mochi, and big pots of nabe. I also like American-style teppan yaki, but I've never eaten it in Japan.

I have mixed feelings about tsukemono, natto (though it's good with sauce and mustard), manjuu, onigiri or omusubi, and most kinds of seaweed. I also never eat rice unless it comes with something else - to me, it's a side dish. Plus, I like brown rice more than I like white.

Mistakes Natives Make

As an English teacher working with non-native speakers, I see more than my share of mistaken grammar, usage, and spelling - but you may be interested to know that native English speakers also make lots of mistakes. The difference is that because native speakers learned their first language in an environment where they use it every day, the types of mistakes they make tend to be more ones of habit and convenience than ones of misunderstanding. In fact, correcting a native speaker's technically mistaken grammar can be a good way to get you called a "pedant", or someone who obsesses over details and academic minutia.
I happen to be quite pedantic when it comes to language, so mistakes natives make concern me quite a bit - even more than mistakes from non-natives, since at least non-natives have a perfectly legitimate excuse not to know how the language works. Here are a few common errors native English speakers make that I rarely if ever see from non-natives:

"Everyone has their own problems"
The word "their" has to refer to two or more people, whereas "everyone" is grammatically singular. Natives quite commonly use "they", "their" and "them" when the subject of their pronoun is of unknown or undetermined gender, even if it is only one person. The correct form, however, is "Everyone has his or her own problems", using singular pronouns.

"Lady's clothing store, its a real bargain"
Grammatically correct use of the apostrophe trips up many people, and turns what used to be a simple printers' mark into a bone of contention among amateur and professional grammarians everywhere. The first word in the above sentence, "Lady's", should be "Ladies' ", since the store is presumably for more than one lady. The word "its", however, needs an apostrophe between the t and s to make it clear that this is an abbreviation of "it is", and not something that belongs to it. Most people can tell what these mean in context though, which is why efforts made to correct them so often fall on deaf ears.

Natives speakers learn their language descriptively, as a tool to explain and communicate, rather than prescriptively, as a system of unbreakable rules. While I believe describing and communicating are the primary functions and in fact the raison d'etre for language's existence itself, rules that sometimes seem arbitrary can say important things to other people who know the same rules - and that's why I try my best to protect them. They are one more tool of communication that I don't want to see dulled.

Spring waits to spring another day...

In one week, it will be spring. I'm definitely looking forward to not having to wear my jacket indoors anymore, but on the other hand, the warmer weather is sure to bring a fresh new batch of insects, too. I guess every silver lining has a cloud attached to it.

My brother in Washington, D.C. reports that the cherry blossoms there are supposed to bloom soon - let's hope we get some here soon, too!

Shizuoka

A friend asked me recently, "which is better, Hamamatsu or Shizuoka?" Since I lived in Hamamatsu for a little bit, I thought I knew enough to answer him. "I actually like Hamamatsu better than Shizuoka", I said, "because Hamamatsu has a stronger identity. Shizuoka has many nice stores and some decent sightseeing, but when I go there I don't feel like I'm someplace unique." Whether you like it or not, Hamamatsu definitely does have a unique identity. I feel the same about Fujinomiya, which is why I like living here.

Welcome!

This is the first post on the new OC English blog. Check up here every couple of days for news, random writings, or anything else we feel like posting here. That's all for now - but I promise, more will be coming!