Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning
I am a native Japanese speaker who used to teach Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. Currently I don't work but stayed in my house in Northern part of JAPAN. I hope that you could enjoy reading my posts and know what life in Japan is like.
It happens in winter. If I expose my finger in cold air for some time, my finger skin gets crack. This time, I got it on the tips of thumb. Every time I touch something, I feel stinging like ache. I need to wash foods and cook meals using water, these cracks are annoying.
And, snow fall; if the ground is covered with snow, it makes me reluctant to work on my field.
January: I was living in the residence for foreign teachers. This photo shows what I put on steamed rice. It’s “Furikake” in Japanese.
February: I had been in my house in Japan during winter break. It seems that there was a lot of snow fall at that time.
March: The spring semester had started at the time of this photo. There was still ice on the surface of the pond in the campus.
April: Some plum flowers were blooming in the campus.
May: Iris flowers around the pond
June: When I was in the campus, I cooked all the meals myself except lunches in weekend. This is a typical dish which I ate for weekend lunch.
July: Though the final examination had ended, I was still in the campus, cleaning the room, and packing my belongings into suitcases to come back to my country, Japan.
August: Summer in this year was quite heated. This photo was taken on the way to a mobile phone shop.
September: Rice were becoming yellow at the beginning of September. Some were already harvested, and some were still green.
October: Japan’s “Susuki” and “Tall goldenrod” from foreign country were competing each other.
November: Iide mountains of altitude of 2000 meters had got snow.
December: Snow has come to low altitude area of Niigata.
I usually write a blog post after supper. Today I worked a lot for the trellis for apple tree. It has been almost completed. And I received the result of chest x-ray test by regular mail from the city hall. I got the test on November 17th. And today is December 29th. It takes many days when it comes to works by public offices. Fortunately, the result was “no-problem”. If it said a further examination was needed, my daily life would be changed completely with anxiety. Since many relatives on my father side died of cancer, I think it is a kind like ticking bomb.
And now I am writing a blog post. I have already eaten a small package of snack. I decide not eating two packages; one at a night.
I am thinking about making a square trellis on which the apple tree “Shinano Gold” can grow its branches. In my design, four steel pipes are connected at the corners. In order to make like that, I had bought four clamps for steel pipes whose diameter is 25.4 millimeter. But yesterday I realized that the clamp didn’t fit the phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. It seemed that the clamp was made to be compatible to both phi 22.2mm(7/8in) and phi 25.4 mm (1in) pipe. Probably the clamp can fit for phi 22.2mm pipe. But for 25.4 mm pipe that I have, its flange gets angle and bolt cannot go into the threads. That means pipes cannot be connected at the four corners of the trellis.
I remembered that there are another phi 31.2 mm (5/4in) steel pipes on the shelves of the DIY shop. I expected that a clamp for 31.2 mm might be able to fit my 25.4 mm pipes. So, I got on a local train in this morning, to go to the DIY shop in the town next to my village. In the store, I checked whether or not 31.2 mm clamp can grip 25.4 mm pipe. But I was disappointed by the fact that the clamp is too big to grip and fix 25.4 mm pipe. I saw the price card. Just one clamp costs three hundreds and some JPY (about 2.5 USD), which I thought expensive. I came to think that using clamps for my trellis was a kind of excessive quality too much. I left the DIY shop without buying any clamps. I wasted time and money for trains.
When I got back home, I tried thinking to other ways to connect two steel pipes at right angle. Actually, the problem has not been solved yet. I am still thinking to find a good way. Probably I will get a better answer tomorrow.
I think it would be better if those trees and illumination things continue to be there until the new year, we Japanese surely remove everything. This time, I have put five color bulbs on my window and lit up them like from seven to nine p.m. Time was not so exact, but I turned them on after supper and off before going to bed. Since I bought them about twenty years ago, they are not LED lights but conventional bulbs. Those bulbs consume 20 Watt, not much, but use more electricity than LED, I guess.
Other Japanese remove all the Christmas decorations, so I thought that I also need to do something with my five color bulbs. What I did was not removing them, but changing from five color to mono color bulbs. Does it make any sense? I am not sure.
I am living in a residential area in small village surrounded by vast rice field. Population is not much. I am sure that my illumination is not seen by many people because very few people walk or drive on the road by my house in the night. But I would like to say that here is a lonely place with less people, I want some lights be there.
It seems they will run out before spring come.
Since I don’t use pesticide, insects or worms have eaten a lot of green part of the Chinese cabbage as shown in the photo. I need to wash the leaves well and get rid of worms’ droppings completely when I cook this cabbage.
Since the tree is by the road that many junior high school students come and go in the morning and evening, I am expecting that a student may be stealing it without my permission. That happened last year. But this year, it’s still hanging on the tree.
If it happened, am I going to make a phone call to the teachers’ office in the junior high school? No, I won’t do it. I don’t mind, it’s okay by me.
Every time I buy, cook, and eat “Burikama” that is part just behind of gills of yellowtail, I always think the same thing; I will not buy it again but buy ordinary slices of body meat which doesn’t contain a lot of thick bones. Because Burikama contains a lot of bones, it is difficult and even dangerous for my mother to eat by picking up pieces of meat between bones.
Next time I buy yellowtail, I am going to cook “Buri-Daikon” which is a famous winter menu.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 