10 Minute history of English

Here's "The History of English in Ten Minutes" I mentioned in today's class:

My Golden Week

 This could really be the most boring and unhealthy golden week that I've ever had.

 Everyday I woke up at 8 and to start off the day I would switch on my laptop to watch two nba playoff games the same time as I had breakfast, which was also my lunch. After that I would take a nap till 4pm and then listen to some music or play some stupid games on my cellphone while I was still in bed. And when I was finally too hungry to continue, which was usually around 6:30, I would cook my dinner and eat while watching a Japanese TV drama about samurai, which was actually not completely boring. Then I would play video games for hours until I got exhausted and after setting my alarm clock to 8 for the next morning again I would go to bed to end my meaningless day knowing it would be exactly a same day tomorrow. Every single morning was like ‘here we go again’ and I couldn't even tell the date.

 But I guess I did have a pretty good rest.

Golden Week

 I spent almost the whole Golden Week with my best friend Jiangjun in college life. She came to Japan as an exchange student as well. She came to Hirosaki from Tokyo.

 We spent the whole week cooking and watching movies together. We both have come to Japan for half a year. And we missed Chinese Food very much. Although the Japanese Food is also very delicious, we still not are accustomed to it very well. So we decided to make the most traditional food of China----dumplings by ourselves.

 Making dumplings is a hard work. The first step is making covers. Of course you can buy them in a supermarket, but it is too tough to stick them. The covers made by hands are very soft. The second step is making stuffing. I like the dumplings of leeks and eggs.

The third step is wrapping. After these three steps, you can put the raw dumplings into boiling water. When it is cooked, you can eat them. But you should be careful not to be scald, because it is very hot.

Hometown

My hometown is Anshan, which is located in the central part of Liaoning Province. The longest distance from north to south is 175 kilometers and the wide distance from west to east is 133 kilometers.

There are three key words about Anshan, steel, bolder, and pears.

The first one is steel. Since The Han Dynasty, there is a record of mining ironstone in Anshan. And the biggest factory in Anshan, Anshan Steel Factory, was built by the same time when The People's Republic of China was built. The intra-city of Anshan is divided into four districts by railway. And the west area in Anshan, one of the four districts, is almost the factory. The factory brings Anshan not only very big economics benefits but also make the air polluted. My family lived near the railway, so it is near to the factory too. I am very worried my parents’ health when I see the polluted smoke flying from the big chimneys. I will let my parents move to another place after I decide my work place.

The second key word is bolder. The biggest joss made of bolder is in Anshan. It is 5.23 meters tall. I have seen the joss by my eyes, and it’s amazing. Around the temple, where the joss is located, there are lots of mountains. Although it is polluted in west area, the east of Anshan is full of mountains. It is said that there are 999 peaks in this resort, so the resort is called of Thousand Mountain Resort. A lot of people who are interested in climbing mountain from everywhere rushed to Anshan every summer. I would like to see the scenery from the top of mountains, but I don’t want go outside in hot weather, so nearly every summer, I hide in my room and eat ice-cream and be fatter and fatter.

 The last one is my favorite, pears. The pears are named Nanguo Pear. They are so delicious that you can smell them when you enter the room even without seeing them. Nanguo pears are smaller than ordinary pears, and you can buy it only in Anshan. No other city is the Nanguo produced. It tastes not only sweet but also a little sour. You would like to have another one after you have one, and then never want to stop having them.

 Anshan is not a big city like Shenyang, so it is not so convenient and crowded. But I like it very much, though it is polluted very much. I think this is the mystery of hometown. You may not satisfied with it and complain about it but nothing can stop you from coming back. In my opinion, everyone has special emotions about his hometown where he was given birth to. 

Self-introduction

My name is JiangMing. I was born on 14th February in 1994. My father always says I was the best Valentine's Day gift that he got from my mother ever.

My parents are just ordinary people and don’t have much money, but we live a very happy life. They never force me to do anything but always ask for my consent before they make some big decisions. Just like my father, I am open-minded, quick in thought and very humorous. And like my mother, I am sensible, industrious and good at cooking.

When I was 12 years old, at which time I was just a little girl, my parents decided to send me to a private school in another city. From that time, I began my in-residence life which meant I could go home only weekends or when there was a holiday or vacation. It was really a hard time for me. I missed home so much that I cried in my quilt every night at the beginning. But soon I accustomed to it. The in-residence life did make me independent and learn to solve problems by myself. Until now, I have been lived in school for nearly 10 years.

　Granted, before I went to the college I have spent much time in studying in the front 6 years. So I try to make my college life more abundant in the later 4 years. I often worked as a volunteer in unities to take care of the aged whose daughters or sons were not beside. And sometimes I went to the seashore to pick up rubbish with other volunteers. Besides these outdoor activities, I also used to do some indoor activities, like calling my friends to play badminton in gym or gathering to watch a movie. My favorite movies are fiction movies or action movies. I am a little poor at remembering foreigners’ faces and names, so in the class I said NO when was asked that who my favorite actor was. But after I went home, I inquired my favorite movies and then I found my favorite actors and actress, their names are Jason Michael Statham, Robert Downey Jr., Angelina Jolie, and Anne Hathaway et cetera. Strictly, I was not fascinated with them; I loved the characters they acted in the movies.

 Before I studied Japanese, I was good at English especially in high school. But in college, when I learn more Japanese grammar, I forgot English grammar more. That is such a sad thing. And the worst thing is that when I want to speak Japanese now, I always think of English; when I try to express myself in English, Japanese always comes out to disturb me. I always feel excruciating these time.

My wish for next 2 months is that I can improve both two languages and speak them out fluently in the appropriate time. 

Hometown

 My hometown is Dalian, a coast city in the north east of China. It’s a modern but crowded city with a population of 7 million and lots of tall buildings. The pace of life here is pretty fast and there are always traffic jams. But also there are many beautiful squares and other places of entertainment. So basically, Dalian is a thriving city of noise and excitement.

 One thing I really love about Dalian is the climate. It’s never too hot in summer nor too cold in winter. And because of that a great number of outsiders have chosen to settle down in Dalian, which actually improves the local economic development. Dalian has four distinct seasons and personally I find Dalian most attractive in summer. Almost every summer my family and I would go to the sea and swim. The dazzling sunlight, the hot sand, the sound of waves and the smell of barbecue, everything just makes you feel so alive.

 Dalian is also a nice city for tourism. If you love animals, you can always go to the city zoo which has a large variety of animals including pandas, or you can watch a dolphin show in a polar marine animal museum. If you’re interested in architecture, the Russian street might be worth seeing. And if all you want is to try some decent local food, there are restaurants that serve some really serious seafood which you just can’t miss. What’s more, we’ve got some interesting local festivals such as the Chinese international beer festival and the fashion festival. During beer festival, which is held in summer once a year, guests can enjoy all kinds of beers and snacks while watching performances. The fashion festival on the other hand is mainly about showing well-designed clothes alone with performances which I have to admit could be kind of boring.

 Most natives of Dalian are passionate and hospitable. If you ask them the way to a place and it’s not far, the chances are they’re going to lead you there, or at least give you a detailed description to make sure you can get there. People of Dalian are usually simple and honest which sadly makes them bad businessmen, which is also why most rich people in Dalian are actually from other cities and sometimes the fact that these people are slowly taking over the city really bothers me. But who knows, maybe at the end of the day, these things won’t matter after all.

 And here are some pictures of Dalian.

Self-introduction

 Hi, my name is Sun Yibo. I’m a senior college student majored in mechanics and Japanese from Dalian University of Technology in China. However, I’m now studying mechanics in Hirosaki University in Japan as an exchange student, which has truly been a fantastic experience so far. And though my major seems to have everything to do with math and physics, I have to admit that I find myself even more interested in words other than figures or mathematical notations. And the reason why I ended up with mechanics and Japanese was that I believed I could just learn English by myself anyway, which obviously didn't turn out as my expectation. So now, my goal is to improve both my English and Japanese as much as I could.

 Life in China as a student could be a little boring because the intense competition just kind of forces you to keep studying all kinds of stuff in school, no matter you have interests or not. But luckily, I still keep a few hobbies to entertain myself such as basketball, which I can’t really say I’m good at. Basically it’s just for fun and to keep fit both physically and mentally, as I find playing basketball a pretty good way to get all my negative emotions out of my system. I also joined a school basketball club in Hirosaki University, which was supposed to be relaxing instead of tiring. 

 Besides basketball, I’m also a big fan of music. I love all kinds of music, country and R&B especially. I even have this Karaoke software on my cell phone, with which I could record my own singing. But then the fact is I’m not really good at singing, which is why I’m usually just an audience everytime I go to Karaoke with my friends. If only I had a better voice, I probably would be a street singer, which is the closest lifestyle I can think of to freedom and happiness. 

 There is not really much to say about my family. Just like most Chinese of my age, I don’t have any sibling because of the law. I’m not exactly the most outgoing type of person but I do have a few friends that I can share things with. My life has never been adventurous since I tend not to aim high or take unnecessary risks. To me, making decisions has always been about keeping things in balance and avoiding extremes. After all, extremes could be dangerous.

 Ok, that should cover most about me and thanks for reading all my nonsense.

My hometown

 I had never moved out from my hometown, Sapporo, for eighteen years. So, I know some attraction of there.
 Sapporo is surrounded by small mountains and hills. I like the views from those mountains and hills. For example, the scenery of Sapporo from the top of Mt. Maru (円山） is one of the most beautiful scenery, I think. Mt. Maru is 225 meter high, so it's easy to hike there. Some wild birds that inhabit there are fed by some hiker, and get used to people. Last January, I went up there with my friend, and it's a very exciting memory for me.
 Other than that, when I lived there, I had been to many places and events by myself, or with my friends or family.For instance, Odori park, the central municipal city  library, Sapporo station, some festivals be held at a park or a shrine, and so on.
 I love my hometown because, I have many memories in there.

Happy 10th anniversary, blog!

The class is no longer called English 3B, but Advanced English B, and the students don't seem scared of computers or the Internet anymore, but it's still the same class and still the same blog for 10 years today. Welcome new students, and I hope you have a good time and learn something in this semester's English composition class. Please take some time to read old blog posts first. -JP http://iiibclassblog.blogspot.jp/2005/04/welcome.html

Self introduction

 Today, I would like to talk about myself.
 My name is Miki Tooyama. I'm going to be 20 years old next month. (My birth day is May 5th.) I'm from Sapporo, Hokkaido, and I major in law at faculty of humanities.
 Also, I join two volunteer circles. Both of them have some kinds of activities that get involved with kids. For example, teaching math for a primary school child, playing with children at a park, and doing simple science experiments with them. These are interesting for me, and I enjoy all those activities.
 By the way, I have some hobbies. For instance, listening to music, singing a song, reading books, watching films, eating, and so on. Especially, I like listening to music very much. It makes me relax and happy. I want to know many kinds of music, because I like the moment that I come across a cool music.
 Thank you for reading my self introduction.Nice to meet you.

Good Bye Class

I could really enjoy this class.

I was so sorry to be late for lesson sometimes.

I think that I could be better than before six months.

So, I will study more. Thank you very much Mr.Philips.

Goodbye to the class

Sorry, I late!

Thank you for teaching us English! It is fast that I forget my homework. I'm sorry. At my first impression to Philips, he was scary person. However, actually, he was full of a sense of humor. He made us laugh well. I am weak in English, but I like to hear his joke.So, I took a class. ln addition, I knew the pleasure to watch a movie in English subtitles. It was an interesting class.Thank you for your hard work.  See you again, but I hope that I do not meet you as a patient!

Good bye, Philips

Thank you for teaching us English, Philips! I often did'nt hand in home work,so I'm sorry . At my first impression to Philips, you were scary peson, but it is wrong. You have nice humor and charming smile. You are surely strict, but you say only usual thing we have to do. Thank to your instruction, I feel strongly I am so lazy. I am going to do my best next year as second grade student. For only latter terms, thank you for your hard work. I never forget your proverb in E mail reply.  See you again sometimes.

Goodbye to the class

 I learned various things through this English class. Because all the languages in the class were English, a body was able to be stained in English.　
　It is a very good memory that I was able to watch a movie during class.
I want to make use of the experience of this class.
　
　Goodbye

 14m1083　Yu Haga

Goodbye to the class

I had not much time to improve my skill of writing until this class started.So this class`s homework was often too difficult for me to finish easily.However,today I don`t think it hard to write paragragh in English.I belive that doing my homework in myself everyweek improved my English writing skill.The skill writing paragragh will be requested in the future.So I thank for this class,and I will keep on improving the skill of writing English.
Thank you very much.

My favorite food

I love sweets! Cakes, cookies, chocolate, everything like that is fine! Probably, you said "most of men is not like you. " however, this is BIAS!! Then you will say" if you keep eating sweet one everyday, your body will cry!(it's means that getting a sick)" I believe that the food I like is good for my mind and body health. Anyone can't stop me!

Good bye to the class

   Hello, I'm Kei! It's my last time to write this blog. This class was very interesting. I learn a lot of things to write academic English in this class. For example, paragraph structure, unity, coherence and so on. These were very difficult. And now it is still very heard for me to write a good paragraph. But I could understand how to write paragraph through this class. I'll try to write more better paragraph from now on.

   Thank you very much! And good bye, everyone!

Spring vacation

   Hello! I'll talk about my plan of spring vacation. I have a big event in my spring vacation. It is my trip of Maine program. I'm going to go to Maine in America for three weeks! This is my second visit to Maine. I'll stay home of my host family with my friend. I sent an email and contacted my host mother five days ago. I'm looking forward to meet her. By the way, I'm a contact officer of Iaido club. In March, I have important meeting of contact officers in Iaido club of university in eastern Japan. It's my first job. So I'm very nervous. However I'll do my best!

   Thank you!

Vacation

   Hello! I want to talk about my summer vacation.  In summer vacation, I had two residential training of Iaido club. First one was for our own club. We ran at the morning, and we took lessons with our grand master. It was very hard but I could get a right sense of Iaido. Second one was for Iaido clubs of universities in Tohoku. There were members from Tohoku university, Tohoku university of art and design, Yamagata university, and Hirosaki university. It was first training that I saw  women's Iaido in another university. Their Iaido was not strong but very beautiful and attractive. I want to be able do Iaido like them.

   Thank you!

The plan for my spring vacation

This spring vacation is big different from ever one!!! The spring vacation of college student is pretty long. Of course, this is also the difference, but I have more great one. What I'm really looking forward to is going to America!! I had ever been there two times, though either is when I was child so I don't remember well.  I can't wait!!!!