Bad Cold and Drug

Wednesday, January thirty first, two thousand and seven

I must have a bad cold. In fact, I have a runny nose and cough very often today.
When you have a cold, how do you take care of yourself? In my case, I have a lot of Japanese sake whenever I have a cold in order to have a good and long sleep. In my opinion, there are no more effective medicines than alcohol against colds. :) In Japan, there's a nice proverb, actually - "Sake is the chief of all medicine.(酒は百薬の長 sake wa hyakuyaku no cyo)" I will get better soon thanks to a huge amount of Japanese sake I had tonight.

To change the subject, I take English lessons at the most famous English school in Japan as you know. Today some English teachers who work for the school have been arrested for having drug in Tokyo! What a stupid guys! Let me ask my teachers later if they know the news.

Ahh.. I could keep writing my English diary for a month somehow.

School Bag

Tuesday, January thirtieth, two thousand and seven

My 6-year-old daughter is a kindergarten student now and going to enter an elementary school this spring. So we have to prepare a lot of things for that these days, for instance, buying a desk and some school uniforms. Today my father-in-law presented her a school bag, actually. She has gone nuts over the cute bag, she can't help but try to shoulder it tonight as the following picture, in spite of she is wearing her pajamas.


By the way, I might have caught a cold, because I have a terrible runny nose now. Let me go to bed as soon as I post this diary.


go nuts over something: ～に首ったけになる、～がすっかり気に入る

Nephew's Lucky Accident

Monday, January twenty ninth, two thousand and seven

When I was driving my small truck toward my factory, one of my nephews, a 7-year-old boy, had a bad accident. When I was waiting for the light of an intersection to change, I saw he was running down the steep slope to the intersection and felt over! I shouted out, "Oh, my goodness!"
Actually, my brother lives next to our factory, I often see that the nephew and one of my nieces go to school when I'm commuting.
After I saw the accident, of course, I asked him if he was OK or not. He seemed to get some scratches but luckily didn't look so seriously. And then I said to him, "You are very lucky, although you got some scratches! If you felt over in front of the intersection, you might get a serious injury or die because the street had a lot of traffic. Besides, you had the accident in front of my eyes, so I could help you this time. That's why I think you are very lucky!"

Anyway, since my young relatives and children often give me a lot of topics to write down on my blog, I might be the luckiest person in my family. :)


a steep slope: 急な坂

Teacher Leaving Japan

Sunday, January twenty eighth, two thousand and seven

Since I had to work in my factory and see my daughter's kindergarten festival yesterday, contrary to my normal habit, I took a couple of regular lessons and some free conversation classes today. In addition, I wanted to say goodbye to the female Australian teacher who are leaving Japan soon. I wonder how many teachers I need to say goodbye in the future...
Anyway, when we were talking with her, I remembered that the teacher gave me the recommendation for my being a level-4 student. When I got the paper, I shouted out "I've got it!" in front of the English school. And then I realized getting funny looks from some people in the clinic in front of the school. I guess they were saying like this, "What a strange middle aged man."

Talking of middle aged man, I saw an English phrase the other day.

"Middle aged people may be divided into three classes: those who are still young, those who have forgotten they were young, and those who were never young."(中年の人々は、次の三種類に分けられるだろう。すなわち、まだまだ若い人。かつては若かったということを忘れてしまった人。そして、若かったことが一度もない人。)

What class of middle aged people do you think I belong to? (^_^;)


contrary to one's normal habit: いつもと違って

Kindergarten Festival

Saturday, January twenty seventh, two thousand and seven

I'm very tired this morning, in spite of I had a comparatively long sleep, 7 hours, last night because of the recent busy work. Besides, my brother and I had to do maintenance on our machinery to change the production line into another manufacturing mode.

After doing that, I took a shower as soon as I got home, because I needed to go to a community hall of my city to see the kindergarten festival my daughter took part in. There were many cute boys, girls and a large number of parents in the hall. Since the organizer didn't allow us to take any pictures and videos to have the children concentrate on their shows, I could look at more performances than usual. Now that I have 3 children, I often have to take their pictures, videos, and something like those, although I'd rather seeing the acting than taking them. Thank you, the organizer! I was able to see a lot of super cute performances thanks to you, but I'll have to buy the pictures and videos taken by a professional photographer later, though. :( Anyway, I had a good time thanks to the festival, their cute performances have really healed me. I can't help but work so hard for cute boys and girls to pass the torch of Japanese future to them. Umm... too cool? :)


pass the torch to someone: ～にバトンを渡す

One of Those Days!

Friday, January, twenty sixth, two thousand and seven

I don't have so many orders from my customers as last winter. But my factory doesn't have good materials to be recycled, besides the machinery doesn't work well these days, so that's why I had to work more than twelve hours a day this week. The production efficiency is really terrible! It's been one of those days! :(

Actually, I learned this phrase "one of those days" last year thanks to a nice American friend who is very interested in Japanese culture. I memorized this phrase "It's been one of those days!" as soon as I heard, because his style of teaching English is so excellent as another nice American guy who I used to drink together with me in a bar sometimes.

To get back to my original point, my hands are really dirty, rough, and have so many scratches due to the recent hard work. My hands look awful but I'm proud of them, because they are kind of a poof that I'm a really hard worker. Japanese people call those hands "Labor's hands", however, I pronounced the words "Lovers' hands" last year. When I said that, I'm so embarrassed! The guy who heard the words started moving his right hand..... Sorry to post such a dirty article. :)


production efficiency: 生産効率
one of those days: 何をやってもうまくいかない日
To get back to my original point: 話を元に戻すと

Toilet with MP3 Player

Thursday, January twenty fifth, two thousand and seven

TOTO, the toilet manufacturer giant in Japan, has just released a new type of toilet. It reportedly has some advanced technologies. The most interesting function to me is that it can play MP3 music! After you did something on the toilet, it sounds some kinds of relaxed music. And also, you can install other kinds of sound you want to listen to during doing something into the toilet... Now I remember, ... the restroom in bar60 that I sometimes go for a drink sounds nicely after I did something... :)

You can see the new toilet's picture on the following URL.
http://kaden.watch.impress.co.jp//cda/parts/image_for_link/5491-385-1-1.html

Umm... the recent my diaries tend to be very short..... :(

Japanese Chess

Wednesday, January twenty fourth, two thousand and seven

Mr. Igawa, who used to belong to Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese professional baseball league as a pitcher and belongs to New York Yankees now, has been named as the first goodwill ambassador of "将棋(syo-gi) - Japanese chess" to popularize "syo-gi" in the USA, according to an article in the newpaper I read today. He often play syo-gi in his free time, actually, and he is reportedly a semiprofessional player. Since my eldest son is crazy about syo-gi and "go", I'd like him to have such a nice opportunity as Mr. Igawa has in the future. Let me teach him English as far as possible for that. :)


a goodwill ambassador: 親善大使
popularize: 普及させる

IRON MAIDEN Helps me Out

Tuesday, January twenty third, two thousand and seven

My 6-year-old daughter usually kiss me before she goes to bed and I leave for work, but she didn't do that habit today. I'm soooooooooooooooo sad that I couldn't fall asleep tonight. Actually, only her nice habit makes me feel good nowadays, however, she seems to be tired of doing that, in spite of I work so hard for my family everyday. Let me try to find another nice girl who gives me a number of nice kisses instead of my daughter....
Just kidding, of course.... maybe... :) Since I had to work fourteen hours today due to malfunction of the machinery in my factory, I'd like to have a good and deep sleep tonight anyhow. Let me listen to IRON MAIDEN to make myself relaxed, and go to bed... Huh ? Is it strange to listen to heavy metal music before going to bed? In my case, it's sort of an excellent vitamin. For me, there are no more nicer ones in the world than listening to IRON MAIDEN before going to bed!

....I'm relieved to be managed to keep on writing my English diary...

Customer Confidence

Monday, January twenty second, two thousand and seven

In Japan some incredible affairs have been caused by some companies recently. They betrayed trust of their customers, I think. One of them used old ingredients that had passed the expiry dates to make sweets. A TV show doctored(altered?) the data of natto which described how good for your diet eating natto is. Of course, almost all Japanese people know eating natto is good for health but didn't know it's also good for diet. It was not sure that eating natto is good for diet, though.
Actually, I often read such silly news these days in newspaper or on the Internet. Whenever reading those stupid matter, I think human being is a type of forgetting animals. In fact, there were a lot of similar wrongdoings in the past. But I have to say to them "Thank you.", because they are sort of teachers by negative samples, they are called "反面教師(hanmen kyoushi)" in Japanese. Although my factory belongs to a different industry from their companies, I was able to reconfirm that "Customer Confidence" is the most important policy to do business well in all industries as well as "Customer Satisfaction". Thanks a lot! I'm so lucky to hear the bad news that our products would sell like hotcakes!


betray: (信用・信頼などを)裏切る
expiry date: 賞味期限(?)
doctor(verb), alter: 改ざんする
forgetting animal: 忘却の動物(?)
teachers by negative samples: 反面教師(?)
something sell(s) like hotcakes: ～が飛ぶように売れる