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.
I am not sure, but according to a book, it says the apple Kougyoku is one of varieties which was obtained from the seeds of “Esopus Spitzenburg” of North America.
Today I got three from the tree in my garden. In total I have got four, and that is all for this year. Kougyoku apples are a little sour. So, it is better to cook with heat than to eat fresh one. Now they are in the refrigerator. I am thinking about making them jam.
I should say, I do not blame my students that only two students sent me messages on the so-called teacher’s day. I am always forgetting about the day until a student says “Today is the teacher’s day”. Anyway, I thank those two students who remember me.
(Let me say the following is not about “teacher’s day”, but about farewell at the end of the last semester. Actually, AI suggestion was confused by the change of the topics. Without mentioning this, a reader would also be confused)
Before I quit the job in July, I asked all the students not to give me any letters or present. It may sound like I was a cold-heart teacher, but the reason was simple. I didn’t have enough time to write a reply in the last days in the Campus. I am a person who always writes a reply to the letter I got. As for presents, it was hard for me to pack them into two suitcases.
But there was one male student who gave me a present that was a small-scale model of “Gandum”. I couldn’t put it into my suitcases. If I had thrown it, I would be really a cold-heart guy. I put it into a carton box with my books and asked another teacher (of that country) to send me from a post office.
Since this is the only “Figure” that I have, I don’t know how to display it. But it would be better to take it out from the case, to put them together, and to decorate it.
I practice a piano from 4 to 5 pm these days. Today, too, and near the end of the practice, I was singing “Will you still love me tomorrow” with my piano accompanying. The song was composed by Carole King, and I was singing it in key-E with Roberta Flack’s version. I like the repeat of the (E) and (D on E) at the end of that version.
When I finished singing, I realized that it was getting dark outside, the sound of wind grew stronger, and it was like a storm’s coming. Looking through my window, I saw strong rain and trees were bent by the wind. I remembered that the window left open on the second floor. So, I went up the stairway and saw that a lot of rain drops were coming into my bedroom. I shut the window.
I feel that Climate change is real. We have had the hottest Summer these three years. I can’t go outside because of heat and strong sunshine for almost two months from the middle of July to the middle of September. Another change that I feel is how it rains. When it rains, it is not drizzle nor light rain. It’s terribly strong. I frequently hear a new word to describe a strong rain in weather forecast on TV. It is “Senjo-Kosuitai”, which is Linear Precipitation Belt. Probably, the strong rain of today also came from a Linear Precipitation Belt.
Now the climate is different from what I knew in my childhood and younger days. It seems that the change is not for good, I mean the hot summer and strong rains are both troublesome for us.
I don’t think it is good to always looking back things in the past, but I found that today is the day I left my hometown two years ago in order to go to a university in foreign country. Until then, I had been teaching Japanese for that university on-line because of the pandemic. The on-line teaching lasted three and a half years. Finally, the pandemic had ended, I got my work visa from the consulate on September 4th in 2023, and then I got on a Jo’etsu Shinkansen (Bullet train) to go to Narita International Airport.
Since then, I had taught Japanese language in the university for two years. There were so many things happened during those two years, that I cannot write something in detail tonight about them. Although I think I had tried doing the best, I am sure that my teaching was not the best, especially for grade-23 students. I regret my teaching style in the listening course.
If I teach one more year, could I be a better teacher, or I be able to teach more sophisticated way? This is a difficult question. And I’d say “NO”. When I made up my mind that I would not renew my work permission for another school year, I had already felt that it was too much for me. If I write like this, I may make some of my students sad. I am sorry for that.
The best thing to me was that I could meet some good students. Learning together with them was my sheer pleasure. Although I have already left the Campus and I cannot see them in person now, I hope that I can be able to keep exchanging with those good students into the future.
But now I can see the moon from my window.
It seems that some of my (ex-)students have visited this blog today. I know this because the numbers of viewers are displayed by country.
The rain stopped before noon. So, in the afternoon, I walked to a supermarket for shopping. I bought fishes and pork for suppers of today and tomorrow. When I got back, I planted sprouts of onion in the field. Planting by hand took time more than I thought, I didn’t have time to practice piano before cooking supper.
My life is tranquil these days.
Please look at the houses behind. They are the same as the photo above.
By the way, I found there were many persimmon fruits on the tree in my garden. In every year so far, all the persimmons have fallen down before ripening. But this time I can see them a lot. So, I wish that some, or a few of persimmons could survive until it becoming orange color in November.
The mountain is Kakuda-yama whose altitude is 482 meters.
As the rice grows, the top becomes downward due to the weight.
People always say that Japan is small. But I think the Niigata Plain is very wide area.
Red cockscombs are blooming by the Rice field. Farmers like to plant flowers at the spare area.
The train has only 2 cars, because it is a local train in rural area.
I can’t get things in the past back. Most of the memory is just in my head. Some are still vivid, some have disappeared already. But here are some digital photos which I took in September 2019. I just upload them, because I haven’t been outside today due to rain nor took any photos.
Though I hadn’t lived there for three and a half years because of the Pandemic, the rooms were mine for six years. While I was a Japanese company employee, I had moved so many times from city to city with interval of two to three years. So, six years in one place is a long experience in my life.
I think I was privileged because there was an air-conditioner in my bed room. We had many hot days in June and July. But unfortunately, there is no air-conditioner in the rooms of student’s dormitory. I feel sorry about that.
It is better to lock me up in the air-conditioned room, but I just wanted to check my bank accounts. Where I live is a small town, so, there are a few financial institutions only, like a bank, credit union, post office, and Agricultural Association. I picked up two deposit passbooks, and headed to two places in order to print the record onto the passbooks. It was just to insert the books into an automatic teller machine (ATM).
On the way back, I walked a path along riverbank, though it was a detour to my home. There was a small Shinto shrine. There are some shrines in my small town. They were the playground for kids when I was a child a half century ago. I don’t believe Shinto, but I admit that Shinto shrine (Jinja) is deeply rooted in Japanese psyche, tradition, and habit.
The explanation board in the Shrine says the shrine was established in 1639. Probably that big tree has also been standing there for centuries.
The highest temperature was 32 Celsius today. It was 4 degrees lower than yesterday. Still it was hot, but looking at weather forecast, it seems that the highest temperatures from today are going to be slightly lower than that in August and until yesterday.
In the morning today, I had planned to go to a supermarket to buy food in the afternoon. But it was still hot and sunlight was strong in the afternoon. So, I changed my mind and decided to go shopping in the night as usual.
I got out of my house after the supper. The night air was cool. I felt good. In the supermarket, I found that bread and pork were already sold-out. I thought I was going to bake pancake tomorrow morning instead of bread, and I bought a little more expensive beef instead of pork.
The distance from the supermarket to my house is 1.3 kilometer, a little shorter than one mile. I hung two carry-bags from my both shoulders, and walked all the way home. I got to my home a little before 8pm.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 