Winter

Hi !
Long time I didn't post a blog in here.  I'm basically doing very good :)
The weather in Buffalo is getting cold day by day, but today is kind of warm day.

Now I'm writing this in the library called "Capen".  UB has many libraries, but this library is the only library which is 24 hours operation.  I sometimes study in this library until midnight, and I can see many students study, too.  I think students in here are very hard working.  One of my friend said that he couldn't go back to his room recently because he has a lot of homework from his classes.  He said he spend almost of all his time in library.  Wow...


Now I'm planing to go to Boston in this thanksgiving holiday.  After that, I don't have so much time in here.  I booked my airplane ticket to go back Japan in December 13th, and our classes will be finished in December 7th.  I'm going to be very busy until thanxgiving holiday.  I have to hand in 6 pages of report, and give a presentation.  Wish me luck.




Ayumi

Weekend

Good morning.
It's September 17th, 10:06 a.m.
Today is holiday! But I don't know what kind of holiday it is. Anyway, I don't have class today.
Now I'm in Lockwood library. Maybe, this is biggest library in UB. I can't compare with Konan library. It has 6th floors, and we can eat and drink inside the library. There are many spaces which we can focus on the study. My favorite one is this individual booth. Today is study day. I'll finish up my class assignment! :)


This Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I spend very fun time with my friends. On Friday,we went to IMAX theater to watch new "Resident Evil." That was the first time for me to watch a movie in IMAX, and that was fabulous! The screen was huge, ans sound system was like that I was actually in the movie. The movie itself was also good, but I felt that the Resident Evil isn't zombie movie anymore.

Saturday was also fun. I had a dinner at my Korean friend's house with 3 korean, 1 American friends. The owner of house, one of Korean friend, made us many kinds of Korean food.

She made Yakitori for me! That was actually taste like Japanese Yakitori. We also drunk Korean alcohol, Soju.


Yesterday, Sunday was Japanese Student Association(JSA)'s BBQ event!
I met some new Japanese exchange students who came from mainly Konan Cube, and other university in Japan, and foreingn people who are interested in Japanese culture.
If you are Japanese exchange student, you might concern about how to make a relationship with other Japanese exchange students. While you are in foreign country, you will face some difficulty. At that time, your Japanese friend is going to help you. You don't have to feel guilty to communicate with Japanese people whan you are in foreign country.


Anyway, I had a good weekends!
See you!

Recently

Good Evening!

Now the time is 12:25 p.m.
I have not been uploaded my English blog such a long time...
The days in here are very busy. I'm using almost of all my freetime to do my class assignment.
I'm taking 4classes now. 2 classes for ESL(English as Second Language) class, and rest of them are academic class. Academic classes are "American Foreign Policy" and "Fundamental Journalism."
Both of them are really hard to catch up with the speed, but they are very interesting.

So many things are changed from the summer time. Especially, my dormitory.
In summer time, I was living in Greiner Hall which is the newest building in North campus, UB. Actually, many of the ELI(English Language Institute) students, including me, are the first people who were live in that building. But after summer vacation, we had to move to another place, and now I'm living in the building called Ellicott complex. And now I really feel I want to move out.

For exchange students, it seems like there are no other choices to live in here without dormitory. However, actually there are many other choices. Many people said it's good for us to live with the person who has different culture, and It's also help you to learn English. I think it's not wrong, but actually we don't have so much time to talk to our roomie. And sometimes It's disturb you to concentrate on your work. In my opinion, your room should be a place where you can be relaxed.
For the person who plan to go to UB, I'll introduce some other choices later. I'm talking about this because me myself found some difficulty to live in dormitory now.

But anyway, my life in here as UB student gradually became stable. Although sometimes feel very stressful, and loneliness, I'm trying to cope with it by myself or with someone who can rely on.

So, yeah...see you later. I'll sometimes come back here to write journal. I believe it's gonna be helpful for my study. Bye!

Walden Garellia mall

Today, I went to the biggest mall in Buffalo that is called Garellia Mall.
It was kind of ELI's activity, and they arranged buses for the students who studying in ELI.
They usually have one bus for us, but so many new students came here some days ago so they arranged two buses. Two buses were full of people.

We have 5 hours to do a shopping. It seems so long time, but actually it wasn't totally enough.
The Garallia Mall was very big, so it took a long time to just see around the mall. And all shops were so attractive. Moreover, Independence day is come soon, so all shops were having sell.

Finally, I bought some clothes. And me and my frineds ate cheese cake in Cheese Cake Factory which is very famous for delicious cheese cake and meal.

There were so many kinds of cheese cake, and I choose original one.
At first, cheese cake was very delicious. It was little bit different from normal cheese cake. But after I ate a half of them, I became bored. And finally I couldn't eat it up. It was very heavy cheese cake.

After that, I had my ears piersed in the Jewely shop. I used to have hole in my ears, but I had been didn't worn earrings long time so they were already closed. It was good because I only had to pay for the earrings, and it wasn't hurt.

And now I came back from a mall, and already finished my dinner.

I'm in U.S. now.

Hello!
It's been a long time when I posted a last blog.
Now I'm in U.S. as a exhange student in University at Buffalo.
I think I'm doing pretty well now :)

I made another blog to record my days in UB. For now, I'm posting that blog everyday in Japanese.
However, I think I came here to study English so It's better to write a blog in English also.
I didn't decided yet, but maybe I'm going to re-start this blog again.
Maybe I can't post everyday because a life in U.S. is busier than I thought.
I have three English classes everyday, and homework is pretty hard. But now I become get used to it.

So... I hope you stop by here sometimes, and see how I'm doing.
This is my blog that I writing in Japanese→http://daily-vege.blogspot.com/
Please check this blog also if you have time :)


See you soon.





Ayumi

Two months

2 months...

I watched two new movies. "TIME" and "The Iron Lady".
I had dinner and lunch with my friends including exchange students.
I went to bar first time.
I gave a speech about Tohoku earthquake.
I read some books "Jiro Shirasu", "古事記は日本を強くする", "旅する力‐深夜特急ノート‐".
I did a parttime job 4 times in a week.
I studied a lot about international relationship and politics in Koji Nakamura's class.
I went to Kiyoshikojin, Arima-onsen, Suma so on.
One of my lovable dog Fusa passed away.

That's all? I don't know.
I think I spend a great spring vacation.
But the last one...hmmmm....That was very very sad for me. I still feel big loss in my heart.
I think I need more time to fix this.

Actually, I went to Suma today. I had no class today so I planned to go to cyber library and do some reserch. But...weather! was so great today. so I called my friend and ask her to go to Suma beach.
Suma beach...wasn't so beautiful. no. It was dirty. But sea made us feel so open. We talked a lot. After that we went to cafe in Sannomiya, and talked a lot again. It was so fun.

It's already about one month left before going to study abroad.
I'm going to study and experience things as much as possible.

I'm ready to recieve your chocolate.

Today is St.Valentine's day, but also my mother's birthday. Happy birthday my mom!
Me and my parents went to crab buffet restaurant as mother's birthday party. I won't eat crab after 6 month, I guarantee.


I'm taking a class with some exchange students now. In this class, we have to speak only English. I think it'll improve my English speaking skill. However It's so difficult to keep up with their discussion. Every time class was finished, I felt so exhausted and little depressed by my ignorance. So recently I try to watch and read the CNN news and Asahi newspaper everyday to know what's happening in the world now. It's very hard to share one newspaper with my parents in every morning.

I think I must to know about geography. Honestly I'm completely not good at geography. I didn't know where the Syria is, and why Syria got strong effect of Arab spring. News and geography are closely related. I realized it.

By the way, I think CNN intensively focus on Syria and Greek(and Whitney Houston) now. In contrast, I think Japanese media doesn't much care about these issue. I don't know why, but I think it's a little problem.


Anyway, I will keep trying this. And I want to do a practice to making my opinion about many kinds of news in English here.

"Yuuenchi"

When you were child, maybe your parents sometimes took you to an amusment park such as Expo land, Kobe portopia land, Ayameike amusement park and so on. However all amusement parks, I stated before, were closed now because of depression, huge effect of USJ or an accident happened there. For me, most memorable amusement park is "Takarazuka Familyland". Takarazuka Familyland was opened in 1911 by Hankyu corporation near from Takarazuka station that is aimed to attracting customers to use Hankyu railway.

But this amusement park was also closed on August 31st, 2003. I remember that some TV channel broadcasted special TV programs about the history of Takarazuka Familyland and they also broadcast a last closing time of Takarazuka Familyland. I was maybe 12 years old, I watched one of these and cried. I had never realized it but I loved there so much. The memories of there were always so fun and so happy(Of cours I'm happy now!). Even now, I often use Hankyu Takarazuka line, and when I saw the site of Takarazuka Family land, I feel so sad. I know it's little odd, but I think if you had been to there, you may feel something for this place.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about is one feature program in TV news"Cast" on January 16th. They focused on "the second life of play equipments". These days, many Japanese amusement parks are gradually closed. Then a Japanese company "Okamoto MFG" repairing play equipments in these closed amusement park, and import to other amusement park mostly in developing country such as China, Vietnam, Thailand etc...  Why developing country? It is because that these recycled play equipments are cheaper than new one, and "made in Japan" is well trusted.

I was so surprised that a ferris wheel in Takarazuka Familyland was also repaired and imported to other country. This ferris wheel was called "Flower Wheel".

It was very unique ferris wheel. Takarazuka familyland was only place that this kind of ferris wheel existed, and this was a symbol of Takarazuka Familyland. After Familyland closed, this Flower wheel devided to two parts, and one of them went to other Japanese amusement park "Beppu-Rakutenchi", and rest of them went to Myanmar(!).

This is "Beppu" one. I can't found the Myanmar one. I felt...very proud to hear that. I rode this some time when I was a child, and this time, this "Flower Wheel" amuse children in Myanmar! It's very wonderful thing. This ferris wheel made me to feel connect with children in Myanmar.

Wow It's very long blog. Anyway, I hope this movement will continue, and I really want to go to Myanmar to see this Flower Wheel someday.

Frozen days

Long time no posted.
My examinations were over in January 27th, so spring vacation is already started!
Yeah! ...but I know. There are too many things I have to do before going to studying abroad.
Thanks to Mr.Koji Nakamura(He is a professor in my university ), I'm attending a class that is aim to learn about Japanese customs and history with some exchange students. I thought this class is gonna be a good for my English study, and the first class was in January 31st.
However, when the class finished, I realized that I can't speak and listen English at all! Moreover, when teacher asked me "What makes Japan?", I completely didn't have any clear answer. Even I'm a Japanese, I've never re-thought about Japan.
I think I read and heard this kind of things before, but this time, I experienced. It was such a shock.

I disappointed myself, but I think I'm very lucky. Because if I didn't take this class, I couldn't have any chance to know how my English is awful. So...yeah, all I need to do is "Doing my best"!



Maybe you can't believe how my home is cold. In this morning, the water didn't came from a tap because all of our water supplies were frozen. And about 8cm ice covered my dog's water bowl.
I felt like that I'm living in Hokkaido(I've never been to Hokkaido, though.).

My resolution

It's a responce blog for my English teacher Mayumi Asaba.

My resolution for 2012 is...

"Just do it!"

Is it a resolution? I don' t know...
I mean, I should move, in any case.

I try to be active, and challenge many things.
In more detail, I want to...

    ・Learrn how to take a great picture.
    ・Read many kinds of books. (Both in English and Japanese)
    ・Be a specialist of something.
    ・Be a good English speaker (Of course!)
    ・Know what happening in the world→Read newspaper everyday.
   
                                                                                                                    etc...

I just wrote a loose list.

Happy new year!

Hi everyone! Happy new year!
I'm back from Kochi yesterday.
I can't believe that the university going to start tomorrow. It's too early! isn't it?

Anyway, I had a great time in Kochi.
I ate Oshogatsu food such as Ozoni, Soba, Sushi, etc...wow...I should go on a diet.
By the way, Soba(Japanese noodle) in Kochi is little different from others.

See? It's very big and short.
I was so surprised when I saw this first time, but now I'm get used to this.
And I think it's very delicious!
In December 31st, I try not to eat dinner too much. I make a space in my stomoch for this. haha...

And in January 1st, I went to shrine to do "Hatsumode".
We went to small shrine near from house. I think this is kind of like "secret spot".

My uncle told me that this shrine were made by our ancester. Wow...

I took this near from shrine.
I'm not interested in plant, but I think moss is cute and beautiful.



I introduced a dog "Hime" before. Do you remember her? (Check my last post!)
She loves to drive, so I presented her a goggles.

Soooo cool! Haha...!



That's all!

I hope everyone spend great time !
Happy new year! :)
                             
                                                                  Ayumi