Kansai Gaidai English II: June 2005

It's too darn hot!

So here I am, sitting with the air conditioner going full blast. I feel so guilty, like I am sucking all the energy out of the earth. I tried not using the air conditioner for so long, but in the end I lost :-(

I went to Osaka this past weekend, and I had the best okonomiyaki! It was so good! I went to Yukari, in Umeda, and I had the mixed okonomiyaki with noodles. After that I went to the movies to see the movie "50 First Dates". It was pretty good . . . in fact, it was so good that the two girls sitting beside me (I didn't know them) couldn't stop crying! It was supposed to be a comedy, but it got pretty soppy and romantic at the end. I guess I'm not romantic enough because I didn't cry. Anyway, the movie was pretty good. The next movie I want to see is Star Wars Episode III . . . I heared it's awesome!

You know, I just don't understand computers. I am in the computer lab with class 3 right now, and we were all going to blog about our favourite songs or pieces of music, but half the class wasn't able to login to blogger.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!

Why not? That's what I'd like to know. It's especially weird because the class before me was able to blog with no problem. I must have offended some blogging gods somewhere and they decided to punish me. Oh well, now half the students are free writing in Microsoft Word, and the other half are blogging.

It's strange, because living in today's technological world, we just expect everything to work with no problem, but when something doesn't work it is always shocking. Anyway, I hope that this blogging problem sorts itself out pretty soon.

My Favourite Music

I just told my students in class one to blog about their favourite piece of music or song. I am very curious about what they are going to write about. Usually I would never tell my students what to blog about, but today I broke my rule of never giving the students a topic. The reason I broke my rule was that I want to show the students a technique for helping them get an essay topic. Today's topic is: write about your favourite song or piece of music . . . but that can be very difficult to write about in a five paragraph essay. Therefore, I want all the students just to free write about their favourite song so that they can generate some ideas and start to think about the topic. After we have done this for about 10 minutes, I'm going to show the students how to narrow down their topic.

The other class, my students and I listened to the song 'Suzanne' by Leonard Cohen. I guess I am infatuated with Leonard Cohen. I can't believe that I even told the students that I used to hope that I was Leonard Cohen's love child. Hmmmm, sometimes teachers just reveal waaaaaay too much information about themselves when they are teaching. Anyway, I've always fancied myself as being a bit of a Leonard Cohen. I really identify with a lot of his music. I guess I have been listening to it for years now. I first discovered it when I was about 21 years old, and I have been listening to it constantly since then. It was like a light went on in　my head. It was simply amazing. Anyway, since then, I have noticed that if I meet someone who also likes Cohen's music, we instantly become friends. It is like we have this connection between us. I wonder how many friendships have been formed over the world because of Leonard's music. If I meet someone who knows Leonard's music, it is like we instantly share the same cultural and spritual space. We are already one because we have already had the same experiences. Hmmmm, I wonder if any of this makes any sense.

It's funny, over the years, I seem to have been finding more and more layers of meaning in the music of Leonard Cohen. It is like the music and me are both maturing together, and developing new subtleties.

Wow, I have written a lot. I think I will write more about this topic when I come into the lab with my class 3. Sorry class 2, but the lab was booked, and I couldn't get the computers for us on Thursday.

It's Sunday today, but it totally feels like Saturday because I had to go into work yesterday. I was one of the teachers doing the oral interviews for students applying to study abroad in Australia, South Africa or Korea. The poor students! Some of them were so nervous in the interviews, I thought they were going to throw up. Another girl practically started crying in the middle of the interview. I think it's so terrible how all this pressure is put on the students. It's kind of hard to tell how well a student speaks English if they are so nervous. I wonder if there isn't a better way to choose the students who go abroad. Anyway, it was a long day yesterday because after the oral interviews, we (the teachers) had a big long meeting to discuss each student and decide if we would recommend that they go on and have the Japanese interview. It was so hard choosing who should go to the next interview. However, I just want all the students who didn't pass the interview not to worry. There are lots of other programs for them to apply to. Don't give up!

Look! It's another picture of my sister's adorable dog. Her name is Georgie (the dog, not my sister). Isn't she great?

Wow, it's amazing how easy it is to add pictures to your blog using www.flickr.com. I hope all my students learn how to use it. It is a bit tricky at first, but once you get an account, it is easy. to put a picture in your blog, click on the picture that you want. Then click on "all sizes", then click the size you want. Then copy and paste the HTML that you see at the bottom of the page into your blog. Easy stuff! There is another way to do it too. You can even blog directly from flickr, but I'll let you all work out that for yourselves.

Have fun!

Georgie

Georgie, originally uploaded by albertaroy.

This is my sister's dog! Isn't she cute? She is wearing the hapi coat that I bought her in Japan.

Wow, this is my first post to blogger using flickr. I hope it works. I think this might be an easier way to upload pictures into blogger.

We're famous! I went to Ritsumeikan University in Shiga yesterday to do a presentation about using blogs with ESL students. The presentation focused mostly on the blogs that I did with my students last year (www.kansaigaidai.blogspot.com), but we had a look at some of the blogs that my students have been doing this year too. Ritsumeikan University itself was really nice. It felt so refreshing to get out of the urban wastland that exisits between Kyoto and Osaka! The air itself even smelled better. Sometimes I can't believe how much pollution there is here in Hirakata. I think the people who live in Shiga are really lucky!

Anyway, I got to meet a lot of really cool teachers from all over Japan, and they seemed to like what we are doing with the blogs. It's exciting to think about how blogging is taking off all over the world, and me and my students are a big part of all of this! Hmmm, I wonder if this semester's students like blogging as much as my students did last semester. I can't believe how many students I have from last year that are still blogging. It's great!