My another photo blog “LQ Laoshi’s Photo Gallery”(outside wordpress)
January 4, Monday
One and a half hours were spent for posing the last week’s log here in the morning. The rest of the morning hours were used for reviewing my scoring of the final exam for reading class. I just made scoring on image files captured from PDF because I could not get students’ real answer sheets in paper format. Once I finished reviewing, I started the second check by inputting students’ answer one by one into a big spread sheet of excel in the afternoon. After the supper, I made some tables of my grading so that it would help me input grading on online registering system. I went to bed at 10:30p.m.
January 5, Tuesday
I started working in the morning. That was to register my grading for the students’ performance in the fall semester. But when I was still doing that, the system had become stopped its function. I knew that the capacity of that registering system was very limited. So I just thought I would do that later. And then I went to out and got on a local train. I needed to get rid of snow in a house. Now the house doesn’t have a person to manage. If there was snowfall, the path from the road to the entrance would be completely covered with snow. It took two hours to make a path by digging and throwing snow with heavy steel shovel. It made me tired. I went to bed at 8:30 p.m.
January 6, Wednesday
I just wasted my time in the morning. Probably it was partly because I was tired from the hard work in the fall semester and mostly because I couldn’t even open the web page for the online registering system for the students’ grading. It seemed that I could not complete registering by the deadline. I took a long nap on the bed in the afternoon. I woke up and then went out. I got on a local train to go to Niigata. I bought a mouse in the electric appliance store by the JR Niigata station. I got back my house at 5:30 p.m. I cooked supper. The main dish was boiled flat fishes with soy sauce.
January 7, Thursday
Since I couldn’t register myself the students’ grades online, I asked the chief to register them on behalf of me. Although I asked the task, I myself had to used the whole morning hours for this to be done. In the afternoon I started preparation for the coming spring semester. I tried making the course design for the business manner class for the third grade students. I cooked salmon for the supper, practiced my bass an hour, and then went to bed at 8:30 p.m. I usually read an English book on the bed until I feel asleep. For this kind of reading a foreign language book, I think it is common not to use a dictionary. But this time I try to use my CASIO electronic dictionary as much as I can understand meanings of English sentences. There are a lot of words that I don’t know. A lot ‘n’ lot. Never is there an end for the second language learning.
January 8, Friday
I didn’t work in morning hours. I just rip music from my music CD and saved them in my Sony Walkman that was mp3 music player. Let me say this; the CDs were that I bought by my money. The mp3 player is for me to listen. So there is no copy-right violation because it is sheer personal use only.
In the afternoon was as follows; I took a nap for an hour. I went to a supermarket to buy foods. I revised the course design for business manner class. I cooked chicken for supper. I recorded my voice so that my students could improve their listening. I practiced my electric bass for an hour. I went to bed at 9 p.m. And then I fell asleep with the help of reading an English book.
January 9, Saturday
We had got a lot of snow in this winter. I got rid of snow a little in the morning. And then I reorganized picture files on my another photo blog on “goo”. This task used two hours of my time in the morning. In the rest of the day, I had just worked for recording my reading voice to make listening materials for my students. The main dish of supper was the slice of mackerel grilled simply with salt.
January 10, Sunday
I worked hard in the morning. But that work was not as a Japanese teacher but as a labor to clear snow. Not only for my house, I made a path for the community although it was just a ten meter or so. I was exhausted. After I finished and I was taking a little rest, I heard a sound of a heavy machine coming. It was a big snowplow probably hired by the city. In a few minutes, the machine had done what I could never do with my hands. It was just like go-and-back, and then the work had done. No sign remained that indicated I worked hard to get rid of snow before the machine came.
But that was not the end of my fight against snow. The air-conditioner as a heater in my mom’s room didn’t work. I was not sure for the reason, but I guessed that the outdoor unit was buried in snow and it could stop the fan rotation. Snow depth was already more than one meter (three feet). I dig the snow and reached the unit. As I expected, snow and ice piled up and went into the unit. They were preventing the fan from rotating inside. What I needed to do was simple; to get rid of them. But the problem was that I couldn’t remove the big circle like mesh lid on the surface of that Hitachi made air-conditioner outdoor unit. I used hot water in a kettle, a long chop stick, and even plastic straw to remove or melt the snow inside from outside through the meshed lid. I blow my breath through a straw in order to melt the snow that was sticking on the fan. Actually this method didn’t work well. I confirmed the fan could rotate, then turn on the AC. I found that that sent a warm air. It took two hours.
In the afternoon, I took two hours of nap on the bed, I went to the library by walk to return books and borrow new ones. Back in the house, I continued recording my reading a textbook for business manner course. I cooked pork for the supper.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 