Monday, February 27, 2006

23歳の誕生日を2月に迎える私に2つのニュースが飛び込んできた。
それは同級生が死んだということだ。

一人は同級生ということでしか面識のない女性で、もう一人は明るくて時々話もする友達だった。
しかもとても衝撃だったことにこのことが1週間も間を空けないでおきたことだ。

自殺か病気だったのか?
とても白状だが、原因が知らされないだけに、死因はなんだったんだろうと思う。
それにまして、もし自殺だとしたら、どんな思いを持って死んでいったんだろうと思う。
ほんとに死んでしまうとすべては闇の中に消えて、なんにも残らないのだなと実感した。

若くして死ぬということは、遺族以外の人にとってはこういうことなんだなと思った。
悲しいけれど、時間は着実に過ぎていく。
丁度私たちの年代はこれから国家試験、就職、留学、結婚といった未来が感じられる年代だ。
そのときに、死んでしまう同年代の人を思うと、親もその本人も無念でならない。

棺に入った同級生の死体はどれも死のにおいに包まれていた。信じられなかった。
本当に普通に5年間同じ学校に通っていたのに。この前言葉を交わしたばかりだったのに。


人はほんとにいつ死ぬかわからない。だから、それと同じくらい生まれてきた理由もわからない。
だけど、私はこの二人の同級生の死で、生きることにある種の責任を思った。

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

TOEFL Result -01/29/2006-

Listening 26
Structure/Writing 17
Reading 21
Essay Rating 3.0
--------------------------------
Total Score 213

子供の異変

今日テレビで「今子供があぶない」といった内容の番組をやっていた。

そういえば日本では学校内でしかも同級生同士が殺傷しあうなど、私が小学生のころには想像もできなかったような事件がおきている。残虐な殺人の低年齢化である。またその原因として、親という役割を果たせなくなっただらしない大人たちや、同様に無責任な教師たちがあげられていた。

石原都知事は知り合いの外国人ジャーナリストが渋谷でたむろしている青少年を取材して、髪や身なり(ファッション)はきちんと手入れされているのに、地べたに直接座るなどというマナーの低いことをすることにないし、世界でもっとも豊かで惨めな子供たちと題して記事を書いたそうだ。また、ニートという問題も日本では起こってきており、それも生活を援助してくれる親があり、ある程度の生活はできるが、自立ができないという、豊かな日本独特の欠点が指摘されていた。
そのテレビの中で言われていたのだが、殺人を起こした少年少女がよく言うことは、「殺した人が生き返ったら、謝りたい」だそうだ。これはゲームという非現実と現実の区別がまったくできていない証拠であり、やはり現代に象徴されるゲームが子供に与える影響の深さを物語っていると思う。人間がやってしまうことにリセットボタンはないのだ。

この番組は芸能人や現役の学校の先生、子供のかけこみ寺として働きかける住職、生活指導を行う先生、少年指導を行う団体の人たちなどが参加しており、実際に行っている活動に基づいた意見を交換していた。それぞれが強い信念を持っているがために衝突もしていた。もちろんこれといったすべてを一括するような答えを出すことを目的としたものではなく、日本全国にひとつでも有効なアイディアを提議することができればよいと司会者は言っていた。

幼児の異変に関する記事では、幼児が手のない自画像を書いたり、水玉模様の川を描いたり、白い画用紙にから揚げ一個の絵を描いたりするという事から、表現という点で今の子供たちに過去と比べて成長不良が見られている。また別の問題としてとても大人びた会話をすることができる子供もいるということである。このような幼児の能力の二極化は、集団で遊ぶことが減り、家で個人が努力により教育を受ける機会が増えたことが要因となっている。幼児教育の発展から、今では英語教育から右脳開発教育までさまざまなことを子供に与えることもできる。私はこれらのことは悪くはないと思うが、やはり、幼少期にお稽古事をした子供と真っ黒になるまで遊んだ子供では、大きくなってからの伸びが違うという。

親が子供をどう育てたいかは、その親の個人的な経験に基づいていると思う。

私は、自分がそう育てられたように、性格的に欠点はあっても、精神的弱者にはならないように、自分の子供を育てたいと思った。

Friday, February 10, 2006

Writing Topic 17

It has resently been announced that a new restaurant may be built in yor neighborhood. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.


With the help of rapid transportation, now we can see a lot of different kinds of restaurants such as Italian, Chinese, India and so on. Now, we can appreciate almost all food around the world by just going out for our neighborhood. I support it if there is a new restaurant going to be built in my neighborhood because there are some advantages that we can get. I am going to metion about the reasons below.

One of the advantages is that building a new restaurant give work place to some people. If they want to open a new restaurant, they have to get enough workers to run the restaurant. And those workers are often picked up from the people who live in the area. So that will be a good chace for those people to earn a money by working in a new restaurant.

Another advantage is that building a new restaurant can provide us a new place to hang out. Building a new restaurant will be big news to us because we like something new and make us want to go there right after its opening. We can talk about our school lives and personal lives whilst we enjoying a new styled restaurant in our neighborhood.

The other advantage is that building a new restaurant gives us a new taste that we never tasted before. Since the progress of food transportation, we can get a food alomost all around the world. And also there are a lot people comming into our country, there are alot of people who can cook traditional foods of their own countries. These facts make it possible for those foreigner to open a new restaurant serves their traditional food, and make it possible for us too, to enjoy foods from other countrie just going to a near restaurant.

I support it if there is a new restaurant going to be built in my neighborhood because there are some advantages that we can get like I mentioned above.

--------29 mins -----------------------------------

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Writing Topic 16

Neighbors are the people who live near us. In your opinion, what are the qualities of a good neighbor? Use specific details and examples to your answer.


We alway try to adjust ourselves to a new environment when we move to a new place. We are total stranger at the first time. It is not too much to say that our neighbors are the key people who make our new lives full of fun or not. So, good quality as neighbors is friendly, less noisy and have the ability to make safe environment to other people.

One of good quality ot be good neighbors is being friendly. If you move to a new place, even that is a dwelling while you attend to school, you will expose yourself to a brand new world from what you have been accustom to living. It easy to imaging that having friendly neighbors such as someone who like to invite you to a potluck party or go to church with them will make your life easy especially in that occasion.

Other good quality to be good neighbors is being less noisy. In Japan, there was a case of murder that happend because noisy dweller annoyed the woman who lived next door to him and killed him because she couldn't stand for the obstruction. So, to make a good environment around your community, it is important to make a less noise not to disturb other people.

Other good quality to be good neighbors is having an average knowlege about common sence. We don't want neighbors who believe in a cult, regular drug users. If you have those kinds of neighbors, it is not good environ ment to kids and might influence also to you in a bad way.

All in all, being friendly, less noisy and having the ability to make safe environment to other people are the qualities of a good neighbor for me.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

I read the article on The Japan Times Weekly Feb 4, 2006 that introduced us the book titled ROGUE STATE, written by William Blum, which got a bona fide book blurb from Osama bin Laden.

He is a writer who is accostomed to laboring in relative left-wing and not well known in the U.S. His foreign-policy critique is that U.S. interventions abroad create enemies. How he mentions about it on his book is "If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize - very publicly and very sincerely- to all the widows and orphans the impoverished and the totured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism."

He made clear that he deplores the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. But he said that they were an understandable retaliation against U.S. foreign policy. "The thesis in my books and my writing is that anti-U.S. terrorism arises from the behavior of U.S. foreign policy. It is what the U.S. government does, which angers people all over the world." He also said, "I am totally against what they did. But we cannot view that as totally the acts of a bunch of madmen. If we do....we will continue making the same mistakes, and the war on terror will be as doomed to fail as the war on drugs." When it is pinted out that terrorists target innocent civilians, which is not U.S. policy, he replies that U.S. tactics in Iraq have led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. "We bomb homes and these people have families, and Washington refuses to apologize for these civilian deaths. The absence of concern makes their actions almost equal to a deliverate targeting of civilians."

It was a bit of surprise for me to know that there is an American who thinks like that. Because I found a similar story on the internet that a Japanese student went to U.S. university and found out that Americans tended not to know the fact that they have been hated by people all around the world when the student discussed about Kosovo dispute with American students.

The same thing has been happening to Japan.

We have kept having a strong hostility towards us from South Korea and China. We have never admitted enough for them about our historical facts that we treat both country's civilians horribly during our invasions and wars. I was not even taught what we had done in wars that we involved, we was taught only about our win and lose. The both countries argue with this Japanese educational falt. It's like we did not apologize - very publicly and very sincerely- to all the widows and orphans the impoverished and the totured, and all the many millions of other victims of Japanese imperialism.

I think we have angered the both countries by showing the absence of concern for the historical facts. I also think that Japan still now are not willing to apologize - very publicly and very sincerely- because apologizing what we did for them is a polite way to say Japan's losing forced by not economicaly equal countries.

A Guide to the Asia's Only Superpower ....?

Holly and Sardine

I found an interesting post on Japundit!
Apparently, in Kansai area in Japan, there is a costome that people poke a cooked sardine's head throught a branch of holly and put them by their doors so that they can protect themselves from evil sprits on the day of Setsubun(the day before the starting of spring) . Really weird!! But most surprisingly, there is specific meaning for that(this is so Japanese :)). The leaf of holly is for poking evil sprits'(Onis') eyes when they try to come into one's house, and the smoke and the smell made by the act of cooking sardine is also for driving them away from one's house.

I am definitely sure that this is the only costome you can see in Kansai area, becase I am from Kyusyu, the most western area of Japan, but I've never heard or saw this kind of thing in there. We only did Mamemaki. Now, it sounds a little boring only having a Mamemaki costom!!

日本って面白い!
日本って昔のままの天皇制が失われたら、つまらない普通の国になってしまうのかもしれないなぁ

Writing Topic 15

Some people believe that university students should be required to attend classes. Others believe that going to classes should be optional for students. Which point of view do you agree with? Use specific reasons and details to explain your answer.


Not all classes are attendance required in university. Some people say their attendance should be controlled by university, some people say that is up to their wishes. I agreet to the idea that "university students should be required to attend clsses" and I am going to mention why I think that way.

Students sometimes don't take the classes that are important to their future because they do not always know what are the good classes for them. So it is good to make the all subjects that are good for them required even though that would be hardwork for them for the first time.

If the classes are required, students can be trained to study equally and can have the same avarage of inteligence. Most of the universities leave it upto students' ambitions how much they study, and that is one of the reasons that we see a lot of dishonest students today. Universities have to take a responsibility as educational institutes, so they should have more attending required classes for students.

When the classes are fiiled with students, it also encourages teachers to teach. Teachers feel more realistic responsibilities to teaching, and they might start to reconsider the way they teach and change it in a better way for students.

Since having attendance required classes is good not only to students but also teachers, I agree to the idea that "university students should be required to attend clsses."

-------- not interesting issue ------- 26 mins ----

Monday, February 06, 2006

Writing Topic 14

Some people prefer to eat at food stands or restaurants. Other people prefer to prepare and eat food at home. Which do you prefer? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.


Now we see a lot of restaurant in our neighborhoods. However, when we eat in a restaurant, we are not sure about what is in the food that we are eating, the food is expensive, and they are not variety enough for balanced nutrients. These are why I prefer to eat at home.

One of the problems of eating at restaurants is that we can not know for sure what is in the meals served in a restaurant. For example, in Japan, there was a big news that told us that there was a Japanese traditional eel restaurant that served eels covered with its secret sause which accidentally filled with cockroachs for a long time.

One of the other problems is that the more you eat at restaurant, the more it costs. When you go to a restaurant, you pay not only for food but also for personal costs and costs for maintenance of the restaurant. Those are why eating outside of your house tends to be expensive.

One of the other problems is that we can not get various enough foods form eating out. When you go to "Denny's" all you can eat are baked meats, hamberger and few fish meals. On the other hand, when you eat in your home, you can eat various baked, boiled steamed chicken, beef, pork and fish and also vesitables, fruits.

There are some dangerous problems by eating outside of your house like I metioned above so I prefer to eat at home.

---------------- 30 mins -------------
but I couldn't come up with good example...

Writing Topic 13

Many people visit museums when they travel to new places. Why do you think people cisit museums? Use specific reasons and ezamples to support your answer.


People visit museums when they travel to new places because it is easy way to understand the places. You can understand how people think about the nature around the places, what the tendencies of art in the places and the historys of the places.

By visiting the museum in a new place that you visit, you can see how the place think and treat the nature around the place. For example, I visited Monterey Bay Aqarium when I travel to California, and I could see here and there in the aqarium that it wants to lead us to protect the marine environment, and the style was really different from that of Japanese aqariums which just show rare marine animals. I got this idea especially when I see the display that showed me how it is easy for turtles to mistake jellyfishs for plastic bags.

By visiting the museum in a new place that you visit, you can see what the art are like in the place. For example, one of my friends went to MOMA(Museum of Modern Art) in San Fransisco when she visited California. And she was surprised from the gorgeous and showy pop colored American modern arts because she was only familiar with Japanese arts which are mostly expressed in a calm decent way. By seeing those American arts, she understood why the Japanese people tend to think that U.S.A is more energetic place that Japan.

By visiting the museum in a new place that you visit, you can see what kind of history that place have had before. For example, a lot of foreighners visit Museum of Atom Bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they visit Japan. Because the museums have a lot of materials that tell us why and how the two sad incidents happened and how bad that the damages were, everybody
----------------- 30 mins --------------------------------
can know about the places' history at the end of World War II.

People travel to the places that they intrested in. That is way the want to visit the musium because you can understand how people think about the nature around the places, what the tendencies of art in the places and the historys of the places by visiting the museums in the place that you are visiting.
--------------35 mins --------------------------------

Writing Topic 12

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Universities should give the same amount of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.

People tend not to know about the importance of playing sports because of the way how their university deal with it. University participants think only studying is important to their students. However, in my opinion, playing sports is also an important thing for students because it is a simple way to give students healty, stress-free lives and to teach about teamwork. So, I agree the statement that say "universities should give the same amount of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries."

If a university spend the same amount of money to its students' sports activities, that will make its students think the importance of maintaining their healths. In this modern century, adults have less time to spend their time playing sports because their busy working. And that is one of the reasons that we see a lot of mental diseases of heart attacks than we used to. So if they taugh that it is important to exersize even your are busy studing, they would know subconsciously about the importance of it and keep that even they start working.

If a university deal students' sports activities with the same respect as they do libraries, the students don't feel guilty about playing sports for refreshing their stress of studying. Since most of the university professors prefer serious students, playing sports is considered as something students should not do while they are university students. And that misunderstanding tend to narrow down students' ways of releasing their stress from busy university lives. And those are why we see more failures that before because of their health problems.

If a university find that playing sports are one of the simplest and easiest way to teach its students about team work,
------------------------------30 mins ----------------------
the university can play its important work as a educational institution. Studying is something that we do by ourselves. On the other hand, playing sports is something that we do with other people, so we will learn how to get along with other people and make an achievement with them. And that is also and importnat thing to be learned before guraduating a university.

In consideration of importance of playing sports as much as the knowledge gained from library, I agree the statement that say "universities should give the same amount of money to their students' sports activities as they give to their university libraries."

Writing Topic 11

"When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success." Do you agree or disagree with the quotation above? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.


It is easy for people to say that the successed people are lucky. However, if they really know how much efforts that they devote to their jobs, they can not say that they are just lucky. So I agree to the statement above and only the hard works that they have done lead them to catch the chances to make them success. Here is why.

Professor Kadoi is the only person who is considered as a real resarcher in my university because he makes cell lines that will be usefull in cytology and immunology area, and write achademic papers every year. I hear that every other professor are saying that he is a lucky guy who can do whatever he wants to, but we are busy with other small jobs so we can not do the research that we want to. But they don't know the fact that he comes to school 8 30 in the mornig and leave to home 8 P.M. and do his research and also the small jobs as a professor all day long. If they do the same amount of work as he does, I am pretty sure that they can contribute the same success that are similar to his works.

In Japan, there are women who called "Millionase", those who earn over a million every year. In the TV show that interviewed to those successed career women, evry women said that what had made them success was hard works. One of the Millionese said that she only could sleep 3 hours because she had a lot work to do in a day. She also said that because she was busy all the time and always thought about her job, it was easy for her to catch the chances to make her seccess in the future.
---------------------------------------- 30 mins ------------------
Matsui Hideki, one of the famous successed baseball players in the world, is also considered as a lucky man in Japan. But there were a TV show that changed the way people think about his success. Mr. Matsui was on this show, and told us what kinds of things that he consider important to be successful. He explained how and what kind of exersizes that he did, and we couldn't find a word about depen on lucks from him.

Do you still want to say that they successed because of their lucks? If you still think that way, you just don't know how hard you have to work to be success and just envy about their outcomes. I agree to the statement that only the hard works that they have done lead them to catch the chances to make them success.
----------------------------- 47 mins ------------------------------
because i think the luck is also important for successing, it took me about 20 mins to brainstorm.
damn it!
don't take it personal.... だわ

Writing Topic 10

Some people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a big city. Which place would you prefer to live in? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.


A lot of people dream to live in a big city. The benefits that you can get from living in a big city are high income, high quality of education and convenience. In that matter, although I am from a small town, I prefer to live in a big city.

If you live in a big city, you can get high income in a big city. In my hometown, Yatsushiro, a typical rural town in Japan, normal an hourly wage is from 580 to 600 yen. On the other hand, in Tokyo, a well known big city in Japan, normal an hourly wage is from 900 to 1200 yen. Since there is a lot of customers in a big city, we are guaranteed to get a high income.

Other benefit that you can get from living in a big city, we can get high quality of education. In a big city, there are a lot of children that those of in a small town, so there are more serious competition among them. An environment that filled with competition is good for children in consideration of seeking more advanced lives. The more high education that you get, the more rich lives you get, so there are a lot of cram schools in big city and that enable the children who live in a big city to get a high quality of education.

Living in a big city is more convenient that living in a rural town. . In my hometown, Yatsushiro, a typical rural town in Japan, there are train transportations every 35 minutes and normally have one or two carriages. On the other hand, in Tokyo, a well known big city in Japan, there are train transportations in every 2 or 3 minutes and normally have 6 or 15 carriages.

------------------------------ 30 mins ---------------

I was raised in a small town, so I love the peaceful life in there, but the benefits that we can get from living in a big city weighed with people of today facing competitions. All in all, I prefer to live in a big city.

------------------------------ 32 mins ------

Saturday, February 04, 2006

松井秀喜選手

松井秀喜選手が、テレビ番組で「大きい舞台で緊張しないためにどうすればいいか」を講義していた。
彼曰く下の図式どおりにすれば、緊張せず成功に導くことができるという。
   
     
目標→  経験   →   記憶   →成功
     ルーティン      自信

まず目標をもって、そのことに関して経験をつむ。彼のパターンではバッティングをすることである。この経験をつむとき、自分がどこでミスを犯しやすいか、どこが弱点かをきちんと記憶し、同じ間違いを二度しないようにするのが重要らしい。実際、記憶という点で彼は、今までのホームランの状況を、その年月からホームランを取った投手、スタジアムまでほとんど記憶し、203号ホームランの状況をぴったり当てて見せた。

もうひとつに、目標を持ったら、自分なりのルーティンワークを持つことだという。彼の場合は試合前はおにぎりを食べることと打席に立ったら、バットの向きを確認することである。自分なりのルーティンワークを持ち、練習中と試合中と変わらないことをすることで、自分を落ち着かせることができるという。逆にルーティンができないときは、「あ、自分は緊張しているんだな」とわかるという。いつもと変わらないルティーンを作ることで自分に自信をつけるのである。

成功したい人は参考まで。

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Revenge-Writing Topic 4

It has been said, "Not everything that is learned is contained in books." Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which is more important? Why?

knowledge gained from experience and knowledge gained from books both have pro and con. An experience are so practical but can not be shared with other people. Knowledge are easy to get various information in a short time. In consider of merits for our future, I say knowledge gained from experience is more important.

Knowledge gained from experience are so practical that you can appliy the experience to other thing. For example, you have experience staying in France, you can use that experience to be a French language teacher, or an adviser for people who wants to go to France. However its demerits are time consuming and not able to share it with other people because experience is someting that only the person who acutually experiencing it can appriciate.

Knowledge gained from books are easy to get. You can get verious information for brief time by reading books and you can share the information that you got from books with many other people. However its demerit is it is not practical.

The really important thing to chage the world better, we need not just criticizing the situation by a lot of information that you get from books or paperspractical and realistic technique to make good revolution happen. All in all, I would say knowledge gained from experience is more important because it is practical.

27 minitutes!!

Section 9

これまたWill君の影響で自衛隊について本を読み始めた。

まだ本を読み始めたばかりで、私自身の意見は固まってはいないが、自衛隊について少しだけ解ったのでここに書いてみる。

そもそも軍隊とは自衛(自国を守る)と言う目的で作られている為、アメリカが持つ軍隊も、北朝鮮が持つ軍隊も、自国の防衛を目的とした自衛隊と言える。すなわちその逆もしかりで、日本の自衛隊も結局は軍隊と言えるはずである。
また、大日本帝国時代の軍隊を基盤として作られた自衛隊であるため、その構造は軍隊のそれと非常に良く似ている。

それなのになぜ日本では自衛隊を軍隊と呼ばないのか?

1つの説として、自衛隊が出来たときの時代背景にあった。自衛隊の設立ははそもそもアメリカが日本に要求したものだった。北朝鮮が韓国を攻め、韓国への軍隊支援のために日本にいた多くのアメリカ軍が韓国へ動員された。そのため、日本を守るアメリカ軍人の不足を補う為、アメリカはその対策を日本の新規軍事設立に求めた。これはポツダム宣言かポーツマツ条約(本が今手元にないため、あいまい)に記載があったため、日本は逆らえなかったと言う。
そしてその名前を付ける際、敗戦後にのこる軍隊への国民の感情を考慮し、軍隊と言う表現を極力避け、平和(日本は戦争を起こさない)を大々的にアピールしたかったのだそうだ。

しかしながら、自衛隊設立当初から、日本政府は「日本には陸海空自衛隊というものがあり、自国を守る為には戦闘機はあるが、それは軍隊ではない」と言うような苦しい説明に悩まされていた。

そして今、テロリズムが現実問題となった今、ずぅっとタブー視されていた「自衛隊を軍隊と呼ぶのか?日本は軍隊を持つ国になるのか?」という問題が解決されるべき問題として上がってきたのである。
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私は昔からなんでお父さんって歴史に興味があるのかと不思議でならなかったが、今はその気持ちがなんとなく解った気がした。

全ての国がそうだと思うが、歴史から学ぶ事は多い。
特に日本は昔の国外に対して閉鎖的な歴史から、戦争というものを足がかりとして、国外に対して開放的に変化していった。その中で、歴史ある国が180度ガラっと変わったとは考えにくく、そのなかで、他国では考えられないような矛盾や対立があったはずである。

私は「ユダヤ人と日本人」という本にあるように、水と安全はタダという考えが頭の中に少なからずある、現代の日本人の典型的な一人だと思う。わたしは神経質なまでに軍隊という考えを消そうとして来た、日本政府のやり方にうまく答えていたのかもしれない。
それでも私は武力を使った戦争は絶対に反対なので、日本が参加した戦争、そのときの日本のやり方などを良く知り、日本がこれからどの様にして軍事(自衛隊)をとらえていくのか、アメリカが起こしている戦争にかかわっていくのかを予測して、心の準備をしておきたいと思う。

日本はとかく「何とかなるよぉ」という動きが国自体(国民?)にあると思う。靖国問題、ひいては隣国(韓国・中国)との関係、今回の自衛隊の問題(憲法第9条)においても、今までずっと問題になりつつも解決されてきた事が無かった。私は政治家になるつもりは毛頭ないが、だからといってこれらの問題について知らなくて良いなんてことはなくて、私個人として、国外の人に質問されたとき答えられる日本人でありたいと思った。

Gavinくぅん&お姉ちゃぁん

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!
ギャビン君がwriting topic 4 にコメントしてくれてたなんて解んなかった!
ありがとうぅ!
writing をどうやって上達させたら良いかわかんなくて困ってたの。日本語を英語で勉強するべきか、英語で英語を勉強するべきかとか、30分でどうやって書き上げるかとか。ギャビン君の方法やって見るね!!

お姉ちゃんもいつもコメントしてくれてありがとう(>人<) 忙しい時は無理しないで下さい。英語でしゃべらナイトで言ってたけど、don't be lazy, write more and more and have good English teachers to check your writing だから、私は英語の先生が近くにいてラッキーだと思います。あとは自分が怠けないだけだわっ!

Writing Topic 9

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Television has destroyed communicaiotn amoung friends and family. Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.


Television has been widely shared information sourse and entertaining provider. It can give us common topics to talk about with other people, hints to understand what people think, and good issues for family communicaiton. So I disagree to the statement that say television has destroyed communication amoung friends and family.

Watching soup opera give you a common subject to talk about with your friends. School children can share the idea about having a boyfriend or girlfrien, or putting a make up the way people do in the soap opera that they are talking about. You can feel more conected with your friends by talking the same subject.

Watching TV program with children make their parents know how their children think about what is going on in their lives and their future. Parents can see how their children grew up by watching them give a sympathy or angry to a criminal in news and see what they like by watching them how to react to some sports program or TV commercial.

Watching TV program give a parent a good issue to talk with their children. Nowadays, there are a lot of parents work in double harness, so a lot of them don't have much time to talk with their children and even have time to talk with them, they can not come up with good issue because they are not used to talking with them. But TV program like news and entertaining program are generation-wide, so by just watching it, parents can get a good issue to talk with their children.

Because watching TV has a lot of merits for our lives like I mentioned above , I disagree to the statement that say television has destroy friends and family communication.

Writing Topic 8

How do movies or television influence people's behavior? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.

People like to see movies and watch TV. It's entertaining and educational. Movie or television can change people's behavior. For example, they have the effects on the trend, make people think what is right or wrong and make people not to worry about facing the difficulties in their lives.

It's commonly seen that the clothes which actress or actors are wearing in soap opera tend to become the mode of that time. People want to buy what celebrities are wearing, in that matter, television can change what people want to buy by using celebrities for a advertisement. It is a vary famous story that there were a big wave of people's desire to buy what Sara Jesica Parker was wearing, as Carrie in "Sex and the City".

Movie or television make people think about its main issue by giving people a lot of information about it. After the opening of "Fahrenheit 9 11", people, especially American, began to think about the justice of the country's choice of sending its millitary to Iraq. And the wave droped the president's approval rating.

Movie or television can encourage people not to afraid to face a problem in their lives or what is important in their lives. A hero movie like "Lord of the Ring", even it's a fantasy movie, you see how the main character face and handle the difficulties in his life. And by seeing that, you get the ideas like never giving up or importance of friendships.

In these ways, movies and television have the effects on the trend, make people think what is right or wrong and make people not to worry about facing the difficulties in their lives.

Writing Topic 7

If you could change one important thing about your hometown, what would you change? Use reasons and specific examples to support your answer.


I'm from Yatsushiro, a small town in Kumamoto prefecture in Japan. Scince my hometown is far from the big city, it is suffer from dicreasing population and not juzzed up city. I can see serious damage from them in main shopping arcade. So if I could change one important thing about my hometown, I would change the declined shopping arcade now called shutter street.

When the main shopping arcade prosper, there would be many local people in the arcade and the city can get the local consumer back to its main street. Children like the place that is full of people, so when the arcade is prosper, the city can get yonger age consumer, and that will lead to give children and mostly eldery shop owner good chances to chat.

Shopping arcade is more convinient to eldery people consider its structure like not having escalator or stair that is usually dangerous for them. Scince the stores in shopping arcade are not big and not having a lot of children chacing each other around, so it is more safe to eldery people to shop in the store.

People feel more connected with the city whey they shop in shopping arcade that is related to the city than they do in a big department store chain. When you shop in the arcade, you can buy the product only purchasable in the city, so you will feel more related to the city by spending money to something from your hometown.

These are the reasons why I would change the declined shopping arcade for my hometown.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Writing Topic 6

A company has announced that it wishes to build a large factory near your community. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this new influence on your community. Do you support or oppose the factory? Explain your position.


My hometown is Yatsushiro, a small agricultural city which is famous for its Tatami(Japanese traditional mat) products. Since the city is remote from big city, my hometown has to face problems such as dicreased population, and shopping arcade that have many closed shops, etc. Making a large factory in a discreaced populated town is considered as one of solutions solve the problem of the small town. In consideration of my hometown, I support making a factory. Although there are demerits from making it but we have to take the risks to make our community prosper.

Advantages that we can get from building a large factory close to our community are a large population, economy growth and the future simble of the community. A large factory needs many poeple to work there, so making a large factory will bring big population to the area it's going to build in. And when there are many people to consume, the economy in the community will grow. And also, the community can use the factory as a simble of it to advertise to other community.

Disadvantages that we can get from building a large factory close to our community are dicreesing workers at small factories those were already there for a long time, pollution in the community and destroying the site that fits to our community. Like I mentioned above, A large factory needs many poeple to work there, so making a large factory will not only bring big population to the area but also take workers from small factories that were already there and make the factories smaller and more weak. It is easy to imagine that a large factory might cause air or water polution in the community and distroy the view of the community because of the large buildings.

When I think about my hometown, making a factory is more effective way to prosper the community. After all, the benefit from making a factory outweigh the dangers such as popution of the air, because we also have modern technology to solve the problem.