Journal for 2005-3-30 Wed. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I didn't have any work to do today. As you might have guess, I spent most of the day working on my web site. The task for today was to make The Trev Reports look SOOO GOOD. (alright, chill) The toughest part was writing a Perl script to convert a text file into a XHTML page. The regular expressions in Perl are really hard to read, but are very powerful and useful. I also studied a little Japanese. Tonight was the Iinan Town Board of Education Going Away Party for staff that are changing positions. Alicia, the ALT in Tonbara, was also there. Alicia's Japanese has become better than mine. I am jealous. Bonus: What does this Perl regular expression do?
Hint: before this expression, x is a tab-delimited file listing. y is the name of a file in x. There is one situation where this expression fails. Do you know what it is?
Journal for 2005-3-29 Tue. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
The new teachers came today. Ms. Ganno will replace Ms. Kawashima as one of the English teachers. She seems like a good person. She as only has been teaching English for 1 year. Before that she was teaching social studies. She only spoke Japanese today, so I don't know her English level. Most of the day I spent changing the style of my web pages. I really like working on web pages. I started a new Japanese self-study course book today, too. I'll do my best!
Journal for 2005-3-28 Mon. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was relaxing. I had lunch with Signe. We made plans for this weekend. We want ot go to Nagoya. The World Expo looks like fun. Most of the day I was working on finishing up my SDF BBOARD web page. Before, you could only access the BBS from telnet, but now you can read it from the web. NOTE: Requires username and password. If you are a SDF (otherwise known as freeshell.org) user, email me at jumex for access. Today's kanji is the last Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 4 Kanji. Have you been working hard from the beginning? Starting tomorrow we will do the Level 3 Kanji!
Journal for 2005-3-25 Fri. Weather: Snowy Plan: Akagi JHS
Spring Break begun today. I have no classes for the next two weeks, but I still have to come to school. Th teachers look busy, but I don't think there is anything I can do to help them. What can ya do? I intend to study Japanese. I could also work on computer projects or translate an online novel. I want to clean my desk, too.
Journal for 2005-3-25 Thu. Weather: Snowy Plan: Akagi JHS
The closing ceremony for Akagi JHS was this morning. 8 teachers are leaving. The principal, the vice-principal, Mr. Okada (the science teacher, and 7th grade homeroom teacher), Mr. Katsube (the shop teach, PE teacher, and 9th grade assistant homeroom teacher), Mr. Tanaka (the music teacher), Ms. Moriwaki (the nurse), Mr. Takauchi (the school clerk), and Ms. Kawashima (one of the two English teachers and 9th grade assistant homeroom teacher). There are only 8 teachers left. Half of the staff are leaving! This evening was the goodbye party. The closing ceremony and the goodbye party were both extremely beautiful. The students, the teachers, everybody was crying. It was a very moving day.
Journal for 2005-3-20 Wed. Weather: Rainy Plan: Akagi JHS
I took the monthly Japanese Self-Study Course today. Recent tests have included a short essay to write. The theme this time was "On Community Associations." I introduced the idea of civic apathy. Afterward I worked some more on my website accessibility. I added things like Access Keys and Link Titles. This evening I uploaded photos from the mini trip I took this weekend.
I imagine that there are neighborhood associations in small town America. A lot of my friends are in neighborhood associations...I say a lot, but actually only one of my friends is in one! I grew up in the big city. America, especially in the big cities, is suffering from a problem called "civic apathy." Robert D. Putnam talks about this in his book, "Bowling Alone." "Civic apathy" is what is coming of less and less people getting together with their neighbors, and other people in general. The title of the book, "Bowling Alone," is referring to the fact that even though bowling is a popular team sport in America, more and more people are bowling by themselves these days. Doing things that should be in a group all by themselves. But that is only one example of how Americans are getting together less and less. Since the invent of things like television and the Internet, it has become increasingly easy to ignore the people right next to us. I believe that metropolitan Japan might be suffering this problem as well, but it is tough to see in the Japanese countryside. Since moving to the Japanese countryside, I have noticed that neighbors talk with each other, lots of people go to neighborhood events, and everyone always takes the time to say a friendly hello. If we city folk take a lesson from these fine country ways, we might just be able to improve our lives.
Journal for 2005-3-19 Tue. Weather: Rainy Plan: Akagi JHS
The last 7th grade English class was today. We have to use the 7th grade textbook for a little bit next year because since Ms. Suyama always takes a lot of time to review a point and takes time to explain it well. After class, Ms. Kawashima and I recorded another One-Point Engligh Conversation Class. The theme this time was sports. After that I worked on improving the accessibility of my web site. I think that the site is much easier for blind people to read now.
Journal for 2005-3-18 Fri. Weather: Rainy Plan: Kijima Ele.
I went to the Kijima Elementary School Graduation this morning. Only 13 people graduated from Kijima Elmentary this year. Come April there will only be 28 new 7th graders at Akagi JHS. So little! Iinan really is out in the country. This afternoon, my wife, Signe, Alicia, the Tonbara area ALT, and I went to the Kijima community center and played with 1st and 2nd graders from the local area. Signe showed them Pickleball, Alicia showed them Yoga, and I became a human jungle-gym!
Journal for 2005-3-17 Thu. Weather: Rainy Plan: Akagi JHS
I really didn't have anything to do today. I only had one class. The rest of the time I spent working on my web site. I was validating it against XHTML 1.1 because I love them web standards. We played a fun and simple board game with the 7th graders in the elective course today. It's like "The Game of Life", but when you stop on a square you have to say something in English. If you say it right you get a sticker. The kids really liked it.
Journal for 2005-3-16 Wed. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
There were no English classes today, so I studied Japanese in the teachers' room all day. Well, actually, I only spent the morning studying my self-study course. In the afternoon I was translating the online novel, Galactic Pharmacy. GP has a lot of slang in it, so understanding it is a little difficult, but I am working hard at it. I use JWPce to help me translate. JWPce has a English/Japanese Japanese/English Dictionary built into it, so when you encounter a word you don't know it is really easy to look it up.
Journal for 2005-3-16 Tue. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
We had the Akagi JHS graduation today. It was a wonderful ceremony. )th grader, Junko Yagai, had a very moving speech. In the middle of it she started crying. The speech was full of a lot of beautiful memories. After the ceremony everyone made a "flower road". The 7th and 8th graders and all the teachers gave the 9th graders flowers and bid them their final goodbyes. I went to the Mt. Sanbe Hot Springs tonight with all the teachers and we had a graduation party. It was really fun!
Journal for 2005-3-14 Mon. Weather: Snowy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was the setup and practice for the graduation. Since the graduation is tomorrow, we spent today changing the gym into a place fit for a graduation, not to mention cleaning the entire school, and practing for the actual ceremony over and over again. The 9th graders are very excited. I prepared the place with the 7th and 8th graders. We also practiced singing. I forgot the words to the national anthem! It's no surprise, since I only sing it at graduations. I like preparing for big events like this. It feels like an anime convention!
Every month I live in the small mountain town of Iinan in Shimane, Japan I have to host an English Conversation TV Show that is shown in the county I live in.
Most of the 20 minute show is Ryoko and I talking to each other in Japanese, but every show has a 2-3 minute English skit. At One-Point English Conversation Class there are a few of said skits. Please download and enjoy!
WARNING: That is some really BAD acting. This is what happened when people like me get to play in front of a camera.
Journal for 2005-3-11 Fri. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
5th and 6th period was the 9th grade going-away party. The graduation is next week, but the going-away party is like a gradutaion put on by the 7th and 8th grade students. The teachers sang to the 9th graders, the 7th and 8th graders one-by-one called up the 9th graders and thanked and praised them, and we relived memories from the last three years. I have a lot of memories of the 9th graders, too. I will never forget them all. To the 9th graders, make a great future for yourselves!
Journal for 2005-3-10 Thu. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was nice. The graduation is next week, so teachers and the 9th graders are really busy, but I have no work to do. Only English classes. The 7th graders are studying past tense. They will be 8th graders soon, but the class is still chaotic. I hope they get more serious when they become upperclassmen. The 8th graders were busy with preparations for gradautaion just like the 9th graders, so they looked really tired in class. Because of that, we just played games and relaxed during English class.
Journal for 2005-3-9 Wed. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Even though I had a cold today, it turned out to be a good day. Nothing really special happened, but there were no problems in class and all the teachers and kids seemed happy all day. This week the 7th graders have a reading test, so in the 7th grade elective English class we practiced reading the passage they will read. The 9th graders were practicing for their graduation and cleaning the 2nd floor (which is for the 9th graders only) all day long. In my free time I was searching the net for science fiction stories written by Japanese people and I found "Galactic Pharmacy." I haven't read it yet, but it looks interesting.
Journal for 2005-3-8 Tue. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I only had one class today. The rest of the time I did some other stuff. For example, I made an English sentence test for Ms. Kawashima. But I spent most of the day on the Internet writing on my blog and the Trev Report. I still have a cold today. It's better than yesterday, but I still feel sick. Oh My G*d (That's for Jacob)! My favorite computer game as a kid was re-released as an open source project! Privateer is the best!
Hello all, and welcome once again to your monthly Trev Report, wherein lies all things about Trevor Lalish-Menagh and his surroundings. What is Trevor like? http://www.trevreport.org/blog/2005/03/waste-of-my-good-time_08.html should tell you a lot (of useless information). Thank you to Paula for getting me "America: The Book" for my birthday! I really love it. Thank you to Signe and Dad as well for your really wonderful gifts! I appreciated them a lot! And now, on to the report!
Trev's Lovelife --------------- Signe has come back from America and her interview for the JET Programme. While she was there she also went skydiving! You can see some of the skydiving pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jumex/ . While she was gone, I did a lot of hanging out with friends here like Emily ( http://modernemily.blogspot.com/ ), Matt Bruno, Rebecca ( http://rebeccainjapan.blogspot.com/ ), et. al. We even went to Hiroshima with Emily's Dad, who was visiting her. I am glad that Signe is back though. I missed her.
Trev's Work ----------- Work is going well. This is the last month of classes in the Japanese school year, so we are all ramping up for graduations and spring break. I'm not planning on doing anything for spring break except stay here and work on catching up on my Japanese study. I have to say, I will really miss this year's 9th graders at the Jr. High School. They have become really good kids, and I enjoy teaching them and being around them. My Cable TV show is also going really well. Starting next month the show will expand into the Unnan area (that is the city adjacent to ours), because one of the higher-ups of the city watched it on a visit to our town, and liked what he saw. The shows have be getting livelier and livelier, but I don't know what will happen after April, when my co-host leaves for another job. Hopefully we can find a good replacement.
Trev's Art Committee -------------------- The JAGS ( http://www.shimaneart.com/ ) committee is coming along slowly but surely. I have finished updating most of the web pages (you can see them at http://www.trevreport.org/JAGS/ ), but I'm waiting for access to the server to upload the pages. My job as treasurer is also going along just fine. We are still short quite a fair amount of money, but the first of our fundraising events will start soon, so with any luck we will get the funding we need to pull off the shows this year.
Trev's Anime and Sci-Fi ----------------------- Signe and I are just finishing up the end of "The Mysterious Cities of Gold." I highly recommend re-watching this if you were a fan of the show as a kid. It is still great. I have been reading the "Oh My Goddess!" manga in Afternoon ( http://www.afternoon.co.jp/ ) for the last few months as well. They have introduced a new character, Gate. She is the personification of the gate between Heaven and Earth, and she wants to experience...new things. It is a pretty fun arc. As for Sci-Fi, I just watched the 20th episode of Stargate SG-1 Season 8, and it turned out to be pretty good, although it was VERY fanservicey. I think Season 9 will be interesting, but in truth I am more interested in watching the second season of Atlantis. That show is getting much better. And, of course I am VERY MUCH looking forward to when the second season of the new Battlestar Galactica ( http://www.galactica.tv/ ) starts airing in summer. That is the best sci-fi show I have watched in a long time, although it doesn't beat Legend of the Galactic Heroes ( http://www.logh.net/ ).
Trev's Computers ---------------- My computers have been running a bit slow lately, but I don't think it is anything much to worry about. Skype ( http://www.skype.com/ ) still rocks my socks, and I have been keeping up my blog on a regular basis as well ( http://www.trevreport.org/blog/ ). The two big things I have discovered and fallen in love with recently are both due to Emily. The first one is called BlogLines ( http://www.bloglines.com/ ) and it is a web-based RSS and Atom feed reader. Now, instead of going to a bunch of websites to read about news, webcomics, and blogs, I only have to go to one page to read them all ( http://www.bloglines.com/public/jumex/ ). It is really a great invention! The other thing I have fallen in love with is Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/ ). It is a place online where you can go to upload and display pictures you have taken. I have spent the last few weeks uploading every picture Signe or I have taken since 1999 onto Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/jumex/ ). There are over 2000 pictures we have taken on there so go check them out and comment away!
Trev's Games ------------ I taught the 9th graders in my Master Class (the top of the class in English) how to play "The Settlers of Catan" and they really liked it a lot! It is a great game to teach your advanced kids. Besides that we haven't been playing much, I introduced Emily to both "Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation" and "Kill Dr. Lucky," but she was unimpressed with both of them (I really like those games, personally). I'd like to find some new board/PS1 games that we can play as a group. Anyone have more suggestions?
Trev's Japanese --------------- My Japanese study is still slipping behind. I work enough to not miss the deadline for the monthly mail-in test for the JET Programme self-study course, but that's about it. I do write in my journal everyday and post it to my blog, that is helpful, but still I feel as if I should be studying more these days.
Trev's One-Point Japanese Lesson -------------------------------- So you want to learn Japanese, huh? Great! How about negative tense for verbs.
Here are a few verbs for us to work with: tabemasu - to eat nomimasu - to drink ikimasu - to go shimasu - to do
OK. Remember last month? Do you notice something similar in all of them? They all end in -masu. To conjugate a verb in Japanese, all you have to do is change the ending of it! So we will be changing they verbs into the past tense, this is how you do it: Change the -masu at the end of the verb to -masen. That's it!
So, let's look at our example verbs: tabemasu becomes tabemasen nomimasu becomes nomimasen ikimasu becomes ikimasen Can you guess about kaerimasu?
Until next time, keep up your studies! Japanese can be a real fun language to learn and speak!
Well, that's about it for this month's Trev Report. Drop me a line every now and again. I love hearing from you all. Until next time, take care everyone!
Journal for 2005-3-7 Mon. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I have a freakin' cold! I felt crummy all day long. I have a fever, too.This evening it was over 100°F! Signe is sick like me, but I think her's is much worse. This was the 9th graders last English class and Speaking test. Most of the 9th graders did really well. At the end of the classes, Kotomi Ujita, for the 1st 9th grade class, and Kyoko Takezawa, from the 2nd 9th grade class, both gave me really nice going away messages.
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Light up the fire in my mouth!
8. What foods do you dislike? University If I have to dip it in MILK, you have FAILED!
9. What are your favorite Potato chips? Something about popping and the inability to quit...
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? That's the last time you put a knife in me!
11. What kind of car do your drive? Our is black and from two years earier, but pretty much the same.
12. Favorite sandwich? It needs freshly melted mozzarella.
13. What characteristics do you despise? Let's enjoy straight answer: feigned stupidity, feigned interest, belittlement, and insincerity. Perhaps there are more, but I despise people that despise too many things.
14. Favorite item of clothing? My really coolindoor shoes!
15. If you could go anywhere on vacation, where would you go? It is the 16th century. From all over Europe great ships sale west to conquer the new world, the Americas. These men eager to seek their fortune, to find new adventures in new lands. They long to cross uncharted seas and discover unknown countries. To find secret gold on a mountain trail high in the Andes. They dream of following the path of the setting sun that leads to El Dorado, and the Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
Journal for 2005-3-4 Fri. Weather: Sunny Plan: Tani Ele.
The Tani Elementary School "Thank You Goodbye Party" was today. In March the 130-year history of Tani Elementary School will be ending. The 11 Tani kids are like a big family. We watched the kids do plays, played some English games, and ate some banana cake that the kids made. After the party I continued to study Japanese. Spring break is coming soon, so I am going to hunker down and study Japanese in all my free time!
Journal for 2005-3-3 Thu. Weather: Rainy Plan: Akagi JHS
The students had final exams all day today, so I didn't have any classes. I spent all day studying Japanese in the staff room. I got a lot done in the JET Program self-study course. In the afternoon I translated an email into Japanese from the owner of Pickleball Stuff to our Pickleball club. The owner said something like "always do your best" to the kids. The kids in the club are happy about it.
Journal for 2005-3-2 Mon. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today is my birthday! Hooray! I am 28 today. It's the same day as the 7th grader, Nobuko Ono! I was really busy because I taught 5 classes today. All the students were really happy today. Tomorrow the 7th and 8th graders have their final exams, so we studied for the tests for most of the time in class. In the time remaining I studied Japanese. I have to study more!
Journal for 2005-3-1 Tue. Weather: Snowy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was fun. We played "The Settlers of Catan" again in the 9th grade master class. This time Ms. Suyama played too. Everyone had a good time. The 7th graders got really energetic because we were doing reading practice in funny voices. After school, Ms. Kawashima and I went to the CATV station and recorded our monthly English Conversation Class. The theme this time was "Congratulations." Ms. Kawashima got to wear a REALLY cute uniform!
