The topic for discussion

I'm sorry to be late.
I found this article from THE JAPAN TIMES.
It sais that women's earnings are still lower than men's one.
Especially in Japan, despite laws regulating fair pay and gender equality, social progress is still so slow.

I want to discuss what we or japan should do to make gender equality in Japan.

The topic I found for discussion

This is the article I found for discussion.
The title is "Indonesian group calls for flexibility in Japan nursing exam".
It says that the number of foreigners who could pass this year's nursing exam in Japan was only 3 among 254.
Through this, I want to discuss the need for foreign nurses, because nursing shortage is one of the serious problems in Japan.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/indonesian-group-calls-for-flexibility-in-japan-nursing-exam

possible discussion topic

This is the article that I found on the Internet!
Although it is kind of long, please take a look at it.


http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/what-will-globalization-do-to-languages-a-freakonomics-quorum/

Hi, this is Yuya!

I am sorry for my late self-introduction!
My name is Yuya! I am 21 years old. My major in the university is international politics.
I am from Hokkaido and living in Hirosaki now.
My favorite food is cheese and natto sushi roll. Especially, after drinking is the best time to eat these things! Unfortunately, my girlfriend from Germany does not like natto.....
My hobbies are watching movies and listening to music.
Talking of music, I love the artist called Monkey Majik! In March, I went to their concert which was their 10th anniversary! It was just awesome!
What I want to do during this year is to travel through Europe, practice the guitar and snowboarding!
I have been to Maine in the United States for studying English for one year. It was really important for me and I could improve my English skills. Moreover, the life in Maine has changed my personality in some ways. I finally realized that language can have an effect on our personality and mind.
What did I actually talk about?! Sorry, self-introduction!!
But I think that is enough for it. If you have any questions, please ask me!
I will keep working on my English as I have been so far.
Thank you!

Hello, this is daiki

Nice to see you here! My name is Daiki Takemura.
Late though it is, I want to introduce myself.

I was born in Hirosaki, and have lived here ever since. I am a senior in the faculty of humanity, and major in Enlish linguistics. I study it, because I want to be a high school teacher of English.

My hobbies are listening to music, driving and playing chess. Though I knew how to play chess half a year ago, I am hooked on it now and play it almost every day. Today I had a game of it with my freind, and lost! I want to be a good player someday...

As I don't have much opportunity to communicate with someone in English, I'm glad to join this class. Thanks for reading.

The topic I found for discussion.

Hi, everyone. I want to put an airticle which I found for discussion of our class.

The title is "Obama seeks court nominee who backs women's right."
This says The president of U.S.A, Barack Obama looks for nominee who backs women's rights.
Thorough this, I want to discuss about the equality between men and women which relates to women's position in our society, the differences in the employment and so on.

I put the article below this, so please click and read it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_supreme_court


Then, if you have a thinking after reading, please put some comments and we can discuss about this more deeply!!

It seems everyone likes music

At least so far, that is. And since this is after two weeks of class, if you haven't introduced yourself on the blog you have only yourself to blame. So I think I will try to teach about the Blues after all. I hope you enjoy it. When we get to it, that is. We have plenty of other things to do before that.

It was an interesting collection of topics people brought to class to discuss. Several of them are related to each other, but others are completely different. Please don't forget to post a message and links about your topic on the blog so we can discuss them over the weekend. Then on Tuesday we can know what we will talk about next.

I'm looking forward to it.

Hi, This is Natsumi

Hi,everyone!
My name is Natsumi Tamoto.I'm from Hokkaido. So I have lived in hirosaki for two years. I'm in junior and belong to the international society course.
I like music. I like listening to music.And I also like playing the musical instruments.I played the percussion when I was in a high school wind orchestra, and now I'm in the steel band.
Do you know a steel pan?
It is a percussion instrument made in Trinidad and Tobago.It is made of oil drums.It is so beautiful sound that you wouldn't expect to be produced from oil drums.

Actually, I've never gone overseas.And I want to study abroad. My English skills are low levels so I want to improve them at this class. I hope I will have a good time with you.
Thank you for reading :)

Hi, this is Sayako

Hi there, I am Sayako.
Nice to see you guys here.

Now, let me introduce myself.
I'm from Yamagata which is famous for many kinds of fruit especially cherry and pear called 'La france'.
I'm a senior and now I'm studying English linguistics. This is still a bit hard subject for me to learn (even I have learned it for at least 3 years), so I think I have to read much more books to write my graduation thesis.
I'm a person like 'musicholic'. I like any kind of things about music such as listening to, singing, and also playing it with musical instruments. I almost always listen to music when I'm alone even at home instead of watching TV, and often go to a karaoke with my friends. In addition, as I can play the saxophone and the violin, I belong to the orchestra club in the university. Music makes me very fun! I love it!!


Well, hope this introduction will help you know about me.
See you guys again next time!

Hi, Everyone!!

Nice to see you here! My name is Mifuru Fujita.
Now, I'll introduce myself.

I had already written here, my name is Mifuru.
Mifuru means Beautiful Rain in japanese Kanji. The reason why my parents named me like that is it was rainy day when I was born. So simple, but I thank my parents to give me special name. Then, I'm in junior in Hirosaki University and I'm belonging to The Faculty of Humanities. My major is Western culture such as American Literature, culture, and so on. I want to read lots of kind of literature.

My hobby is listening to music, singing songs, reading books, wandering, sleeping and so on. I love listening music. Japanese popular music, American popular music and Japanese Anime Songs. My favorite singer is Avril Lavigne. Her songs impressed me so much. I also like reading books. It takes really long time to read one book but I like it, because books give me a lot of information which I don't know. My favorite writer is Haruki Murakami. Anyway, I think I have to practice to read book faster. If you know how to read them faster, please teach me...

Maybe you can't understand me all by only this introduce, so let's talk together!!
Thanks for reading this!!

Welcome to class and self introduction

Hello, students!

Welcome to the class blog! This week you should write a self introduction in English. Don't forget, this can be read by anyone on the Internet, so be careful what you say! You never know who's watching.

You can read more about me at my website, but since I expect you to write about your selves here I guess it's only fair I do the same.

As I mentioned in class I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and moved around a lot all my life. I got a Ph.D. in history at UCLA, where I met a Japanese exchange student also studying Africa. We moved to Japan where we had two children and teach in neighboring universities. I like playing chess, reading, watching movies and listening to music, especially American music, but also African music, European and Indian classical music, and other genres.

In this university I teach American Studies and African Studies, especially history, but I can teach many other things as well.

This class is about writing English, so let's do our best to practice writing English as much as we can!

I look forward to reading everyone else's self introduction.

The undergraduate library at UCLA:

You can see more of my photos on my website, or on facebook.

about the blues

Hi, it's little bit late to write about the blues:;anyway, never mind.

It's the first time to listen to for me too.There're so many type of blues.

And changing the topic a little, I went to 'JAPAN BLUES FESTIVAL 2009' last weekend. Actually, it's annually event. I've never known that.

The live music was soooooo cool!Katherine Davis' singing was really nice.

→about the fes

If you guys' interested in it, you can come to listen:)

Have a nice vacation-.

This is interesting concerning last class's discussion

My daughter sent me this story, and I thought it would interest everyone after the last class discussion. Please comment.

About Blues

Hi!
I like listening to music, but I have never listen to blues by choise.

The mention of blues reminds me of a very sad song,
but there are some songs which are up-tempo .
So I enjoyed blues better than I have thought.

I thought that guitars play a key role in blues songs.
Because I felt that guitars bring out sadness.
Do you think so??

I have a question...
Are threre any woman blues singer??
I want to listen to a blues which is sang by woman.

That is all!! Bye!!

about the blues

Hello.
I do not listen Blues very often, lectuers were interesting. I have to listen three times at least, to understand foreign music. Hand-outs were very helpful for me.
I like Bob Dylan. His genre is folklock(perhaps), not Blues. I think he can sing another type of music. I am not familir with him. Only I like his harmonica.
His song, "Blowin' In The Wind" is used in my favorite author's book. It is very good song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ced8o50G9kg

About Blues

In this lecture, I listened a lot of Blues for the first time and I was very surprised that Blues has such many types than I expected.
So, I have a simple question, are there any paticular instruments to play Blues?
I thought that players often used guiters and pianos.

about Blues

When I listened to some of Blues in the class, I remembered Japanese Oldies called "Showa-Kayou". They have a little bit sadness, loneliness, and are full of wit, I think.
And I was surprised to know singers improvised Blues at that time. I can't believe that!
How did they make rhyme just after repeating first verse twice? Did they stock any expressions to make such Blues?? If so, it clearly shows how close to people's daily life blues were at that time. Music has been always with people for a long time. Of course, I love that.

Blues were improvised. It meant they were not perfect. They were so imperfect that everyone could perform them, I guess. Professor said that everyone can make Bules but not everyone can make good Blues. Tough I can't see which are good Blues or bad, I just understand how people really wanted to sing their lives. I think Bules are soulful.


You can check the information about Blues here!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-bar_blues

about the debate on 25th

we will debate on June 25th. The topic is " Do you approve school uniforms or not?"

approval: Natsuko, Yurina, Haruna
opposition:Rie, Shun, Chiyori, Ayaka
(Is this right?? If you find any mistake, please correct this information!)

Some of you were not in the class when we decided the topic. If you were, please decide which side you stand and please tell us on the blog or in the class.

that's it.

About the Simpsons

I love this movie so much!!
I laughed out aloud many time^^

But there were some violence scenes in this movie,
I do not like that scene very much...
However it is a animation, its cruelty is the same.

I think The Simpsons is not a mere animation.
They takes up the social problems, and they turn it into a parody.
For example, an environmental problem(Homer throw away trash illegally.)

So I think The Simpsons is a decent educational movie^^!
Though there are some scenes that I do not want children to see^^;

That is all. Bye(^_^)

The topic of debate.

What a coinsidence!!! i also thought I want to debate whether kids should have cell phone or not. But the age I want to debate is from Junior high school though. As I started to own a cell phone when i was university student, so I dont think there is significant meaning like for a security or making the relationship between parents and children smoothly which parents insist on. On the other side, it is also true that most of students in high school have a cell phone, therefore the students who dont own it have bad points like it's difficult for them to contact with friends because high school students use a cell phone as the way of contacting with friends in most case and that doesnt mean they live in same area anymore since they are in high school, you know. so I want to draw the line which kids can have a cell phone between junior high school and high school. but I have the precondition if they want to own a cell phone, they have to pay for it by theirselves though.