A Fear of Norovirus!!!

When I woke up this morning, I found my father still in bed. He's usually the one who wakes up earliest in the family so it was weird. I asked my mother if there was anything wrong with him and she said he had a stomachach and threw up a few times last night. She took him to the hospital and he was diagnosed as having the notorious norovirus. Norovirus is a highly infectious disease and prevelaent for these years so I was threatened when I heard that. I'm very thankful from the bottom of my heart for the fact that there are two bathrooms in the house. I will never use the one he has been using. He's been locked in his room and asleep all day. Every time he uses the bathroom it should be sterilized. It's not nice to say but I really don't want him in this house right now. It is very scary to be in the same house with him. But it's too cold to be outside so I have to stay here.

The virus appeared to come from the oysters he ate last night. They were raw and he was the only one who ate the. Thank god I didn't eat that oyster yesterday!! Oyster is usually my favorite food but yesterday, I just didn't feel like eating it. I'm so sorry for my father but I don't want to even get close to him right now. And I learned another lesson from this experience: get oysters cooked, before you eat them.

［261 words］

2-19 "Masie and the Dolphine"

This story was very beautiful. The main character is named Maisie and she lives in the Bahamas with her parents who are doctor and grand father. In the story, you can see oceans and beaches at lot. It made me want to go to the Bahamas.

Maisie is thirteen years old. She lives near the beach. One day, she saw a dolphin hit by a boat driven by American. She took the dolphin to her parents and they took care of it. The dolphin recovered at Maisie’s house and she named it Ben.

The American who owns the boat was an acquaintance of Maisie’s father’s. He wanted to build a hotel so was offering Maisie’s father 200,000 dollars for the estate. His hospital was very small so he wanted to think about it. Maisie knew and was unhappy about it.

Ben liked Maisie very much. Ben ate only food Maisie feed him. But now he’s fine, they had to let him go. Maisie was very sad. Maisie and her grandfather went to release him to the ocean. Maisie cried but after they let him go, he came back. He seems to tell Maisie to follow him. She jumped into the water and followed Ben. Ben led Maisie to a little box under the water. She found lots of gold in it.

Using the gold, they modeled the hospital and turned down the American’s offer. Then can always live there because of the gold.

I like oceans and beaches so I liked this story. The Bahamas must be a beautiful place. I wish I could live somewhere like that someday.
This story reminded me of “Shitakiri Suzume”. It’s about an old guy who saved an injured sparrow. The sparrow comes back to the old guy and brings him a lot of money and reward. Dolphin is very smart and friendly animal. I want to swim with one someday.

[317 words]

Eiken

I've aplied to the English test which will be held on Jan. 27 th. The test is called Eiken. The level I'm taking is pre 1 which is the second hardest. I went to a book store to buy a text today. I browsed the book just briefly but it seemed very difficult. I really want to pass this test so I will start strdying today. I've got a month to prepare so I think I will be fine. I need to know as many vocabularies as possible. So I will try to remember all the vocabs I don't know in the text. I am very motivated because I paid for this test by myslef and it wasn't cheap. I don't want to waste my money so I will work hard!!!

I want to go to Europe

I really want to visit Europe someday. Maybe I go there next year. I have a friend in Paris. He's a French guy but speaks Japanese fluently. I think I'm very luckey to be his friend because he says I'm always welcomed to stay at his place and he's gonna me around the city. I don't wanna visit only Paris but also visit other countries in Europe such as Italy, German, and Spain. The only problem is that I don't have money to get the airplane tickets. Why are planes so expensive? They should lower down the price immediately.

2-18 "ESCAPE"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.

First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.

[188 words]

Cleaning day

I cleaned my room today. It my little dusty and messy before and now it's clean and I feel good. There is a custom to clean throuout the house or work or school before the new year starts in Japan. I cleaned throughout my room. The weather was perfect for cleaning.

First, I had my huton and blankets hang outside so that there was much more rooms in the room. I put away the things on the floor and used the vacuum cleaner. It didn't take so long because my room is pretty small. I like my room clean but it will be a mess soon again.

［107 words］

My favorite socks

When I work outside at night, I'm cold at first. As I move more I got less cold and warmer and warmer. However, my toes are always cold. No matter how much I move, my toes stay cold. I always didn't like that. One day I talked about it to my mother and a few days later she bought me a pair of socks. They are in different shape from what I usually where. They have 5 bags for every single toe. She said they keep it warm. I was suspicious at first. Besides when I wore them, it felt something was stuck between the toes so I didn't really like it. But I was wrong. During I was working today, my toes never got cold the whole time. I was so impressed. These socks are amazing. I have seen some people wear those socks including my mother and I sneered of them because they looked ridiculous and weird. They didn't look stylish to me. But now I realize weather it is stylish doesn't matter. I prefer to keep my toes warm. I thank someone who invented the socks and my mother who bought me them.

［196 words］

X'mas Eve

Today is X'mas eve but it doesn't matter to me. It's a big deal to some people especially couples but I personally don't think it's important. There are lots of decorations and lights everywhere. I think they are beautiful and fun to look at. However, I'm fed up with the X'mas songs played everywhere. They played the same song over and over again so it's annoying. They air special TV programs for X'mas at all channels. Some of them are funny, some of them are boring. I've been watching the good ones at home. In 2 hours I have to go to work as usual. It's chilly outside so I'd rather stay home being lazy. But I want to earn money and buy an i-pod. That's good motivation to me.

［130 words］

MSN is cool

I have a friend studying in Vancoucer, Canada. We're very good friends so we still have contacts by emailing and chatting. He once suggested me to buy a microphone so that we can talk free on the messenger. Messenger is a software you use for chat. I wasn't really interested at first but I eventually bought it today and talked to him for the first time. It was really exciting! I couldn't believer it was free because it's exactly like using a phone. Phone costs some but messenger doesn't. It was amazing. I felt like he was here with me but he is actually very far in Canada. It was kind of odd. Thanks to the technology, I would try to call another friend in Australia tomorrow.

［127 words］

Back from Bangkok

Today I saw my friend I hadn't seen for 6 months. He went to Bangkok to study English and now he's on holidays so he came back temporarily. I was surprised when I saw him because I didn't know he was back. He looked a little different. He looked more Thai to me. He said people sometimes think he is Thai and talk to him in Thai in Bangkok. He also said he lost his weight. Maybe that's why he looks different. He said it's fun to be in Bangkok. He also has traveled some islands. Thailand is one place I always want to visit. Hopefully, I will go there before he finishes school there. I asked him to show me some pictures but he didn't have any on him then. It was very good to see him unexpectedly today.

［140 words］

A hard day

I couldn't sleep much last night because I came back home from work at 4:30 am. I finished working at 3 am and went to a public bath after that. That is why I came home a little later than usual. I started to work part time from 11 pm to 3 am until the end of the year. I will soon be in holidays and have much of free time so I decided to use it to earn money. But I still had 3 classes today.

I actually got into bed before 5 and had to get up at 9:30 for the first class which starts at 10:40. Even though I was very sleepy and didn't feel rested at all, I immediately got ready and left for the university by motorbike. I didn't eat breakfast. It is extremely cold when you ride a motorbike in winter. I wear a mask to cover my face so that I can avoid the wind and I also wear a knit cap underneath the helmet so that my ears won't hurt as if they fall down.

The first class was International law. This is very interesting and I usually enjoy it but today, I was too tired. I couldn't concentrate on the lecture. It was hard just to be awake and sit. I tried hard. In the break, I went to library and rented some books to write reviews for Writing 4. I wanted to sleep there for minutes but I still had other things to do. I needed to visit a professor for something but she wasn't in her room that time. I needed to go to Maruzen, the book store and pay 6000 yen and apply for the English test. I had no time to sleep or eat lunch during the break. The next class was Education. I couldn't stand anymore and slept for about 20 minutes so I felt better. My friend sat next to me. He said he's going to buy a computer. The last class was TOEFL. We practice TOEFL in this class. We did writing practice today. Writing doesn't make me sleepy so I was fine during this class.

Finally I'm finished all the classes in 2007 and came home.Once I came home I ran to the bed and fell asleep. It is now 9:35 and I just woke up. I feel good. I think I will be awake all night because I already slept a lot today. But I don't have school tomorrow so I guess that’s ok.

［423 words］

Learning with Computers

Computer is a very useful tool for us to do whatever you do. You can do many things with computers. You can write an essay, or you can draw a graph, or you can listen to music, or you can watch a movie and of course, you can learn with computers. Computer is now one of the necessary things to learn with. Lately they teach kids how to use computers in elementary school. It's getting important more and more to be able to use computers mainly for students to learn.

Computers are very useful when I write an essay for class so I use computers a lot for assignments. But you need some skills to write essays with computers. Before I started to learn with computers, I couldn't type as fast as I do today. I had known how to type but I used to type so slowly. Now I use computers almost everyday. It doesn’t take so much for me to write with computers. There is a proper way to write an essay and I didn’t know that before. After I wrote with computers, I didn't check for typos or grammar mistakes. Teacher once gave me back my paper with a lot of red marks and taught me how to check for typos and grammar mistakes. Now I make sure that I don’t have any typos or grammar mistakes on my essay every time after I finish writing them. I just didn’t know that it was very easy to do with computers. Nevertheless to say, editing is also much easier when you write an essay with computers than when you handwrite it. It’s troublesome to use an eraser and rewrite paragraphs with a pen, but with computers, you can do it all by dragging clicking. It takes only a few seconds. That’s what I like the most about writing essays with computers.

I had never written blogs before I took Writing IV. For Writing IV, I had to take write something on my blog almost everyday. I had never done it before. To be honest, I was pretty lazy to write blogs everyday at first. It is just like taking diaries. I thought I couldn’t do it at first. I wasn’t good at keep doing the same thing everyday. I didn’t want to do that even for the credit. But as I tried to keep writing it, I became used to it. Whenever something good or bad or extraordinary happened to me in life, I thought “I’m gonna write about this on the blog”. Blog became a part of my life. As a matter of fact, I now enjoy writing blogs very much. I also enjoy attaching the pictures on the blog. After I write a post of the day, I go on to the internet and look for a picture. Blog can look much better by decorating with pictures. When you keep taking diaries on blog, there will be many posts. To organize them, you should label each post so that the posts will be classified in categories and it’s easy to read or find a post you want to read or edit.

The internet is something helpful for us. If you wanted to know about something, you can search for the information on the internet and mostly you can find what you want. There is an internet site called Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online dictionary where you can find various kinds of information. Besides Wikipedia, you can discover so many things if you use the internet. By using the internet, you can communicate with people all over the world. If you install a messenger into your computer, you can chat with people far away. You can exchange opinions or make friends with people anywhere on the earth. You can know what is happening in other countries by using the internet. It broadens your perspective. I have a messenger installed into my computer and I chat with my friends in Canada one and off. It’s very fun and easy. I feel them very close to me even though they’re across the Pacific Ocean.

I think computers help you learn better. It provides you with a lot of things. You can write essays much easier than you do with your own hand and the typed sentences look better. You can learn many things from the internet. And the internet gives you the opportunity to experience other worlds in your room. You can even talk to the people on the other side of the planet. So I think computers are very important.

［768 words］

Typing Speed Trial "Memorable experience"

One of my memorable experiences in my life is when I went to New York city 2 years ago. It was February and very cold but I still enjoyed it. I went there with my sister. I always wanted to go to New York so I worked hard part time and saved money. I had 2 part time jobs and worked very hard. I chose February because it was the cheapest month in the year. We stayed at Hilton hotel near the times square. We went to the statue of liberty, the Metropolitan museum, and many spots very famous. I like just waling around the city. There were so many different people walking so fast and the city has a lot of energy. I ate the food at the vender and it was very good. Vender is a booth sells food on the street. It was very memorable trip. I would love to go back there again.

[157 words]

My new job

I started a new part time job yesterday. It is temporary which is until the end of December. It is a delivery service company and what I have to do is classifying the packages. Many people send packages in December so they need extra temporary workers. I work from 11 pm to 3 am. It's a little bit had but it's only for this month so it's ok. It was more fun than I thought it would be. There are pretty heavy packages too so it's sort of like a working out. I have to work outside so it's very cold at first but it doesn't take so long to get warm because I move a lot.

[117 words]

2-17 "ESCAPE"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.
First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.

[223 words]

The Korean restaurant "Saoul"

Yesterday I went out eat with my friends. First we planned to go eat nabe so we searched for a restaurant serves nabe. We found some but they were all full so we couldn't get in to any of them. We walked a lot and it was very cold to be outside. We were starving as unbearable so decided to give up nabe and go wherever we could get in. Then we found this place "Seoul".

It was located on Kaminoura tori. It was a Korean restaurant. We ordered a couple of meet for yakiniku and our drinks first. I liked the homey atmosphere of the restaurant in a bit of Korean mode. While we waited for the drinks and meet, we closely looked at the menu. There were many Korean foods such as bibimbup and kuppa. They all looked good. We decided to order Korean style ramen, cold noodle, and kimchi fried rice besides the yakiniku meet. Once they came out to our table, we started to broil them. They sounded so good. The meet was very juicy and delicious. The quantity of the food on one plate was pretty big. The noodles and the fried rice came. Those three dishes were all spicy but tasted so good. We drank lots of water too.

After we ate, we paid and left the restaurant. They gave us candies when we got out. The candies were scorched rice flavor. It is different and good especially after eating something spicy. We all thought we wanted to come back. It is a very good restaurant. It was good to pass all the restaurants we couldn't enter and eventually found this place.

［271 words］

My Bike

It's been very cold and I'm inside a lot. That means I haven't being doing exercise these days. It is bad for health. I decided to ride a bike more often. I usually ride a motorbike. It's very cold but much faster. But today I went to work by bike and it felt really good. I felt I did something good. My thighs hurt a little but I think I'll be used to it soon.

[75 words]

About learning with computers (free writing)

I think learning with computers is very helpful and fun. You can get so much information on the internet. You can exchange opinions with other people, even those who live on the other side of the world by using computers. That means you can know what kind of peole they are, what they are thinking in different worlds. You can understand a lot more about the world.
Computers make it much easier to write an essay. It's easy to edit what you write and typed sentences look good. However I still think writing by your own hand is necessary when you learn kanjis. If you're used to typing with computers too much, you sometimes lose some kanji skills. Kanjis come out by just hitting the keys a few times when you write with computers but it doesn't really help you to remember kanjis. Because there are a lot of Kanjis with the same sound, you should know which is right one for the one you want to use. For that, I think you should practice kanjis by hand writing other it's hard to memorise many kanjis.

［186 words］

Party

Last Saturday my highschool friends got together for a party. I hadn't seen them for a long time so it was very fun. One of our class mate held this get-together and he invited all the class mates but only 10 people out of 38 could make it. I still enjoyed it very much. One of our classmate has been engaged. She looked very happy. The other girl has moved to Osaka and been working there. There were 5 girls and 5 guys. All the girls are working and all the guys are still students. We went to Izakata on shimo-tori and stayed there for 3 hours. We talked a lot. We talked about our highschool lives, nowadays lives, and many other things. We were all drunk and felt happy. I'm looking forward to meeting them next time.

[138 words]

2-16 "Star Reporter"

One day, Steve heard from his friend that there was a new girl in town and he was excited. His father is an editor and always looking for interesting news. He tells his son to find something interesting to write on the newspaper about.
Steve went out. He saw a girl at a supermarket. He wondered who she was. After that, wherever he went, he saw that girl. She has a camera on her all the time and seems to be trying to take some interesting pictures.
Later that day, he heard from his neighbor that Bud Ritchie was back in town. Bud is a writer and used to live in this town. Steve thought about visiting and intervewing him for his father’s newspaper. He went to Bud’s house and asked him questions. When Bud was talking about his experiences, he found a cat on the tree and she couldn’t get off. He climbed the tree and tried to help her but he fell off the tree into the water and got wet. Then, the girl was there taking Steve’s picture. The girl was Bud’s daughter Marietta. Steve and Marietta became friends and the picture of Steve was on the newspaper.

I thought Steve was a nice guy. He works hard for his father. He climbs a tree to help a cat and ends up fall. He doesn’t complain about his embarrassing picture was on the newspaper.

［237 words］

TV

I like watching TV. I spend at least an hour per day for watching TV . I usually watch TV a few hours before I go to bed. Sometimes I watch TV as eating snacks. I have favorite TV programs I don't miss every week.

One of my favorite TV programs is "Ururun Taizaiki". It is a documentary of Japanese actors or TV personalities or models or artists go abroad and spend a week to homestay with local families. They always challenge new things there. It's very interesting because by watching that show, you can learn a lot about other cultures. Sometimes they are sent into the jungle and stay with unknown tribes. They ofcourse don't know the languages. I'm interested in foreign cultures so I enjoy this TV program so much every week.

I'm always looking forward to wathing "Grey's Anatomy" on Saturday nights. Even when I cannot be at home on Saturday night, I record it on the HDD player so I won't miss it. "Grey's Anatomy" is American TV drama about the interns. It's not only about their work at hospital but also about their families, romances, and lives. I like this show because of its unpredictable story and good entertaining performances. I also like the music they play behind the story.

Besides "Ururun Taizaiki" and "Grey's Anatomy", I watch the TV shows on FOX a lot. FOX is a satellite TV station airs many good shows. They are mainly American TV programs and dramas. They air constantly for 24 /7. They often repeat the shows again and againg so if you missed a show you wanted to watch, you will have another chance soon again. My favorite TV shows on FOX are "So You Think You Can Dance" which is American dance competition show, and "24" which is another American TV drama. I think FOX is a very amusing station.

I can say that TV is essential to my life. I enjoy wathing it everyday especailly "Ururun Taizaiki" and "Grey's Anatomy". I even have a favorite TV station. TV is not only an entertainment but also a tool to learn about things through the programs like "Ururun Taizaiki". I like TV. It is an important thing to me.

[372 words]

COLD

Today was very cold and cloudy so it was a little depressing. The bad weather sometimes gets me down. I hope it will be fine tomorrow beause it's Saturday. I'm planning to go to gym in the morning and go to work in the evening. However, if it will be too cold or rainy, I would stay home and watch TV with the gas heater on.

[66 words]

2-15 "Mr. Jealous"

Rob dates with Cathy and he likes her very much. They are both teenagers. One day, she said that Rob is the only one boyfriend she’s seeing. Rob was very happy to hear that.
The other day, Rob asked Cathy about she didn’t answer her phone on Wednesday. She said she was out with Tom. Rob was confused. He didn’t know who Tom was but didn’t ask her because he didn’t want to have Cathy think he’s jealous.
In the weekend, he called Cathy. Cathy was not at home and he heard she was out with Tom again. He didn’t know what to do. He was jealous.
Next day, he asked her who Tom was, if she’s dating with 2 men at the same time. Cathy laughed. She showed him a picture of Tom. Tom was a kid. She takes after him off and on. Rob was relieved and happy again. But Cathy, in her mind, says “Tom has a 18 year old brother and I like him a lot…” in the end of the story.

I thought it was a shocking story. Cathy actually likes other guy but Rob doesn’t know to the end of the story. I thought this story would be funny and cute but, because of the last word she said in her mind, I felt it was even scary. Girls are scary…

［227 words］

Nabe party

It's getting very cold since last a few days. We need something hot, fun, and delicious. I thought.
NABE it is. I called my friends to gather up and have a nabe party.

First, we had to talk what kind of nabe we will have. I wanted to go with "Soy milk nabe" but a few of them didn't like soy milk so it was tuned down. Other suggested "Kimchi nabe". Kimchi's good and I love kimchi nabe but I thought it was too normal. I felt like trying something new. We had done with kimchi so many times before. But everyone except me agreed with him so it's kimchi nabe we're going to have.

We went to buy stuffs. We bought Kimchi, Kimchi soup, pork, Chinese cabbage, 3 kinds of mushrooms, tofu, fried tofu, and beer. We bought everything. We headed back home and started to get ready for nabe. First we fried Kimchi a little bit in a pot and pour the soup into it. Wait until starts to boil and put tofu first so that soup soaes in to them. We put all the stuff into the pot and wait for a while. It's very easy. And it tasted very good and very warming. We finished with some noodles and we were so full. We couldn't eat any more.

Nabe party is very fun. I wanna do it again next week!

[234 words]

Family Get Together

I have been very busy lately because many things happened to my family.
I have two older sisters who live in other cities on their own. One is a nurse in Yokohama and the other works for a fashion company in Fukuoka. They adjusted their schedule to come back in the same week so that the whole family could get together after 5 years of seperation.

Living with my parents and grandparents and being an only child in the house is pretty calm. Their average age is like 60. So it's somewhat quiet family we have been for last 5 years.
Being used to this quiet life, I totally forgot what it was like to be with my sisters under the same roof. So I was looking forward to seeing them again very much.

The first one arrived from Yokohama on Friday. I actually met her this year's summer. I went to visit her on vacation. The next one arrived next day. They were both at home. It was kind of werid to see them at the same time in one place.

At that night, they drank so much. They both like drinking. They usually drink for hours. They expected their father to drink with them but he didn't want to. He's old and wanted to go back to his room and relax. And he did so. They weren't really happy about it. My mother got pissed by the fact her two daughters drink so much more than their father does.

They stayed here for week. They drank almost everyday during they were here. Sometimes I drank with them too. It was a very busy week!

[276 words]