Summer Vacation!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally!!!


My summer vacation had started from Tuesday!!!!

I am finally FREE!!!!

The tests we had were very hard and it was very difficult...
Well, I did all I could, so there is no regret.


In the spring semester, I took too many classes, so I am thinking of decreasing the number of classes in the next semester. The reason for me taking too many classes was that I choose three classes which will pick random people with fixed number of students for a class. The number of people who were willing to take those classes were so large that I thought I will not be chosen for at least one of the classes. However, I was too lucky. The school had chosen me for all three classes... I was TOO luck that I even feel that I am unlucky...

It sounds like it is contradicting, doesn't it?
All the classes were very interesting and I do understand why the classes were so popular. But taking too many classes will mean there will be many mid-term, finals, and reports.


Anyways, I now feel that I am getting used to Sophia University.
I really enjoyed the spring semester.


During the summer vacation, I am planning to hang out with my friends in the university, friends from my high (and middle) school, and friends from elementary school!!!

Some of the friends that I am planning to play with are those who I have not seen for more than ten years!!! I wonder how they have changed like!

Also, I will go to my circle and the summer camp held by my circle!!!

Can't wait!!

Poem of Yourself

About Mari Miyazawa

There was a girl named Mari Miyazawa

who used to be called Mary Miyazawa.

Among her friends, she was short, and she was small

and when being taught, she became dull.

She is lazy

as well as crazy.

But there are times when she feels sad

and times when she feels mad.

This is all I have written at this point.
I might revise or all something to it sometime because I get the feeling that some of the words do not suit very much.

By writing this poem, I thought that writing a poetry was much harder than I had expected.


Thank you

Debate

Hello.

In the last article I wrote about the debate and the summer picnic of my circle and I said that I will write more in the next article. So here I am!!!

The debate held between the students from the Tokyo University and the Sophia University, called the "UT-exchange", was about the abolishment of the death penalty in Japan. I personally think that there should be death penalty because I believe that this is what are being a deterring factor of murders and other criminals. However we had to do two debate games standing on both the affirmative side and the negative side.

The game is held between two pairs and a judge, so there are five people who participated in each game. My pair was a girl named Emi, who is a really smart girl!!! She supported me a lot and I think that I was very lucky to have her as the partner. In the result, we won the first game which we took role from the negative side but had lost the second game from the point of the affirmative side. I seriously owe a lot to Emi and I feel that I could not have done such a great game without her help. Even though we had lost in the second game, I did my best and there is no regret about it.

What had made me most excited about the whole UT-exchange was that my group, Emi and I, had won the fourth prize, which was the best score of the pair from the Sophia University!!!!! I was seriously amazed at this!! It is very honorable to get such prize and I am very proud of it. I seriously thank Emi, my best partner for doing all the works with me!!

ESS

Last Sunday, I had an English debate with the students from the Tokyo University.

It was one of the events in my circle ESS and that was a lot of fun, although it was very difficult. We had a debate on the topic of "the death penalty should be abolished or not".
We had two debates and we had to do both affirmative side and the negative side.

It was taken place in the Touyou University (I don't know why). The debate was done all in English. I strongly feel that the students from the Sophia University did a wonderful job!!

Each debate was done between pairs of two people. Although my pair couldn't get a first place, we got the forth place, which was the best score the students in the Sophia University got!!!


This Saturday, there was another event by the ESS. It's called the Summer Picnic. I had such a fun time! I wish I can go back to yesterday!! However today, it seems like I have caught a cold...
I will write about the Picnic more on the next blog article, so please wait!!
Bye!!

here is my rule of three that I have came up with in the class.


I used my dog's names which are,


Mack, Marron and Muffin

hello

hello everyone.

I did not notice until now but today was Father's Day!
I wonder what people did.


Last Friday, which is the day before yesterday, I had my mid-term exam for the Intensive Reading class.
Oh, that was hard. VERY hard. We had to translate the English texts into Japanese and answer a question on the stories we have read in the class.

Also on the same day I had a test for the French class too.

It was a listening test and we had to write down the sentences that the teacher had said.

I like the French class, however it is very difficult for me.


I first learned French when I entered the elementary school in Japan.
Then I moved to the United States and learned Spanish after in the elementary school there as well as learning English at the same time. That was very, very difficult since I was learning two different languages at the same time...
After graduating that elementary school and entering the middle school I learned French from the very begging again.

Then my family and I moved to England and learned French from the beginning again.

After a year, I came back to Japan. In the middle and high school I went to, we were able to take a foreign language class but instead I took the Global Issue which is a class we learn in English.

From all these things, it looks as if I can speak French fluently but the fact is, that I forgot everything that I had learned!!!!!!!

So I started learning French in this university from "Bonjour" !!



I like learning different languages though, because being able to speak different languages means that you are able to talk with more people from different countries! Isn't that nice??



Salut!! (that means 'Bye' in French!!!)

ESS

Hello and thank you for coming to my blog!

Yesterday I took part in a play organized by the Drama Section in my circle, ESS.

The story was a parody of Cinderella and I was acting the mean Step Sister.

Basically throughout the whole play, I bullied Cinderella...

ESS has four sections; Speech, Discussion, Debate, and Drama.

We have to choose one of the sections that he/she would like to participate in, and once he have chosen it, he cannot change the section. The final decisions will be made at the Summer Gasshuku(合宿), which is something like a summer camp. 

So there is something called trial period for the freshman in ESS to experience all the four sections. At this point, I have experienced speech, discussion and drama.

Trial period for the debate section is starting from this week and I am so excited!

Also another thing that I wanted to write in the blog was about the homework from the British Culture class. Briefly explaining, the homework was to write a report and the topic for it could be anything as long as it is connected to British culture.

So, I choose Alice in Wonderland for the research topic.

From researching, I have found out many interesting facts and I thought it would also be interesting to share those facts.

One of the facts that I got surprised at was that the model of the Alice in the book, named Alice Pleasence Liddell did not have a blond hair. The image of Alice with blond hair was just created by the animated film by Disney!!

Another thing is that many names of the characters in the book were taken from the author, Lewis Carroll's (whose actual name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) friends and places he was familiar to. For example Cheshire was the name of the town he was born in, and Dodo came from his name Dodgson, since he sometimes pronounced his name as "Do-Do-Do- Dodgson" for the little children to remember it.

The last fact that I would like to share is the poem from the book.

In the end of the book, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There, there is a poem that uses acrostic. Acrostic described in the dictionary is; “A composition, usually a poem, in which the first letter of each line spells out a hidden word or message.”

This is how the poem goes;

 

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?

I really love this poem not only because the words are beautiful but because you can actually see the affection towards Alice. 

It is very interesting to read this book focusing on the riddles and words tricks that Carroll uses.