Time flies

It is February already. I used to say to my friend as a joke, "Hey, only 11 months to go to the next year".  Time passes so fast for the first three month at the beginning of the year.
I remember  the famous saying by Gandhi, "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever" However, I feel impatience as I can learn but I do not have enough time.

Snowman

Snowman or woman?

The snowman we made last week is still alive. I made nose, mouth and false eyelashes on the face during the lunch time. Is snowman usually male? Now that the man turned to snow-woman. By the way, is the word "snowman" sexist language? If so, I should call it "snowperson"

Cat's food preference

Eating withered grass

She eats the grass for pets. I bought potted grass. It is very strange that she seems to prefer dried withered leaves to fresh one. That is OK as I do not have to water the grass.
I really want to ask her "Is it tasty ?" I hope she will stay healthy.

Cat

I heard a sound early in the morning while I was in bed. I immediately recognized that it was sound of my cat vomiting on my desk. I found the vomit on my notebook so I rubbed off it right away. Anyway it was lucky that she did not vomit on the keyboard.
I wanted tell her "I am not your servant !" 

It snowed !

It snowed in the night.　The world has changed to white in the morning.

Photo taken in the evening

The snow has not melted, so we made two snowmen in the lunch break with my coworkers. One was really big, the height is over a meter, the other was a bit smaller.  It was so hard to put the snowball of head part on the body part of snowball. The snowball was so heavy to lift. I hope I do not have sore muscle tomorrow.
They will melt within this week.

Cold Sunday afternoon

It was cold day.
I went out for short time and bought some books. I finished reading one of the book written by a translator.  He says that pronunciation of English is not big problem for Japanese because English speaker can understand what some says in context. In the book, there are some eye opening tips for English learners.
I realized again that to master foreign language is not easy, and takes time.

Winter with kotatsu

Curling up inside kotatsu

It was awfully cold today too.  It sleeted slightly in the evening but it did not snow. 
We cannot live without heater in winter. I usually use kotatsu, which is low table with heater. We put blanket on it and put our feet inside to get warm.
Typically cat in Japan inside the house is curling up in the kotatsu in cold winter season. I prefer staying inside to going out in winter like a cat.

Wiki

I noticed that Wikipedia was blackout today. I really depend on the Internet and I usually use Wiki or other sources in the Internet instead of consulting dictionaries. I appreciate the person who decided to create the largest encyclopedia in human history.
The printed encyclopedia seems to be about to become a thing of the past.

Going dentist

I went to the dentist in the morning.  I do not have any trouble in my teeth but I had my teeth scaled. I go every two to three month for that.  I really do not want my teeth decayed.
By the way the dental clinic was chilly and I did not have to take my down jacket off inside.

Anime TV on Sunday evening

It's Sunday today. Every Sunday evening, we can watch TV anime "Sazae-san".  I do not like the anime so much as the scene of the anime is set in not present age, but in 30 or 40 years ago . That means they never use cellular phone, the Internet. In addition, surprisingly, Sazae's mom wears Japanese kimono everyday!  The anime lasts for decades, but the characters in the anime never get old. I feel it is so unnatural.
On the other hand, the anime TV we can watch in the Sunday evening "Everyday Mum(Mainichikaasan)" is more funny and realistic. 
I wonder if these animes are for kids or not.

Chilly winter

It is awfully cold this winter. However, we do not merely have snow here in the place I live. I do not like winter season because it is so cold, and the hours of daylight are shorter than that of in summer. It  gets easily messy in the house  than in summer because we wear thick clothes in winter.
I hope spring will come quickly.

English group lesson online (2)

The One's word provides group lesson dairy except Friday and Sunday. I often join the lesson. I feel comfortable when when the skill of students joined is almost same or higher than mine. Now I can say that some of the regular attendants are acquaintances or friends. However we know each other only through the Internet. The feeling is same as that I felt when I was in 'Second Life' as an avatar and got friends in the virtual world. I wonder if I should rethink the purpose of joining the group lesson.  

Start of the week

As it was national holiday yesterday,  the first working day of this week is Tuesday today. I felt happy because I could skip Monday. I feel it is quite right the expression "blue Monday". Is Monday a villain in the week? If so, really feel pity for Monday. haha.

Coming-of-age day

It was national holiday (Coming-of-age day) today in Japan. When I got 20, the day was the 15th of January. Now the day is the second Monday of January.
In my case, I did not attend the ceremony because I felt it was not worth attending and it was meaningless. Now I feel that it was perverse act to be absent. Anyway, congratulations to everyone to reach 20. I hope they will build a brighter future :)

ESL Podcast

I often listen the ESL Podcast. The program is basically free and easy to understand for me. The contents of the program are dialogs and stories. One of the points that I like most about the program is that the host Jeff cracks a joke so often. I would like to become a man who can tell a good joke or make artful pun in English someday.

iPod nano replaced

I had an iPod nano, the 1st generation model. After some problems were reported, Apple decided finally to replace the 1st model free of charge. My iPod nano was replaced new, 6th generation model. I can not believe that it is smaller, has touch panel and very advanced pedometer. I have noticed I am behind the time.

English group lesson online

I am a member of online English school named 'onesword'. I usually take private lesson once a week. In addition, I take group lesson whenever I can join. Though video on Skype is not used on the GL, it is interesting to listen what other students say. I often get new phrases. I sometimes feel the GL like a group therapy because we sometimes talk about our experiences. I describe as group therapy, but I have not joined real group therapy.

get started

I started this blog basically for myself. I am native Japanese, and English is second language for me. As a part of my English exercize, I will blog in English.
I would like to write collect grammatically, but I do not want to devote much time to proof what I write.