Had my hair cut

I had my hair cut and permed yesterday, so I feel really refreshed. My hair had been getting in my eyes and it was a real nuisance, but I’d been too lazy to go to the hair salon. But then I remembered that I had twenty-five thousand-yen of free tickets for the salon that were good till the end of this month. Oh! I had to go there! So I had my hair cut and permed, I had some treatment, got some mousse, a facial soap and a facial cream, for nothing! 

Long time no see!

Ta-da!

I’d been tackling my assignment until last weekend. As I mentioned before, once I start my assignment, I totally concentrate on it and work out as much as I can, so I didn’t have time to write this blog for a month. 
The assignment was to plan a place for praying by the sea. Actually, I could choose “in a green field” or “in the city” as the site, but I chose “by the sea”. This was my fault. It took a lot of time to make a site model. Three weeks! So I didn’t have much time to plan and make a place model, even though this was the original goal. However, I managed to make some plans and one of them was fairly good, I thought. 
Last Saturday, I brought a big box to class packed with models. When I took the site model from the box in the classroom, everyone looked at it in wonder. The teacher said that I was the first student who made it perfectly. I did it! And the comment on my praying place plan was not bad. I’m really looking forward to getting the result.

A choral competition

I often take part in my nephew and nieces events with my sister. The other day I went to a choral competition at my nephew’s high school. My sister said that it was unusual that they sang a cappella, so I wanted to go. 
Before the competition, the principal made a speech that the high school had a 50 year tradition of singing a cappella and some people chose that high school because of the a cappella competition. Really? I became more and more keen to listen to them. 
First, the first-year classes sang. They had only started at the school two months earlier, but they were not so bad, considering. After the first-year classes, the second-year and third-year classes sang. Wow! They sang pretty well. All of them were in good voice and in perfect tune. Excellent! 
Speaking of choral music, I like the American TV show, “Glee”; a musical-comedy-drama. As I listened to the competition, I deeply felt the difference between American and Japanese school culture. Freedom vs. discipline. In American schools, they sing and dance, and they sing all genres of music. In Japanese schools, they stand side-by-side in three rows, and sing songs as a chorus. I was surprised that my nephew said that when a class sang in the competition with steps, it was prohibited from the following year. Unbelievable! I hate such a Japanese thing like this.

A site model

I'm having a terrible experience now. I’m making a site model for my assignment and it’s awfully terrible, because the site is a mountain with sheer cliffs. Why is it so terrible? 
When I make a site model, I use styrene paper 5 mm thick. This time I am making a one to two-hundred scale model, so it is scaled down to 5 millimeters for 1 meter. The height of the mountain is 72 meters, so I need to pile up 72 styrene papers in a contour interval. If I simply pile them up it’s not so hard, but the styrene paper is expensive, so I make it by using only two papers. How? 
First, prepare two site plans, and trace on every other contour line with a red felt pen. Shift one line in another plan and use a blue felt pen. Next, put up plans on each styrene paper, and cut the styrene paper along the colored line. Then, pile up the red and blue ones one after the other. Finally, the mountain is complete! 
It seems not so difficult, yeah, it’s easy when it’s a gently sloping mountain, but in case of sheer cliffs, it becomes hard, and that's 72 papers. 
My work stopped at a part of the gentle slope. The future is black!

A crisis of continuation

The night before last I went for drinks with people who entered my old company at the same time. Our friendship, six members, has lasted about thirty years, although we are in different careers now. Last year, we decided that we would get together twice a year in the future. Of course, all of us should participate in it, but unfortunately one of us, my best friend, is going to move to the UK in the autumn and two of us will move to Yamagata Prefecture next month. Unbelievable! We are going to get together at a hot spring in Yamagata Prefecture next time for the moment, but can we continue the party? 

By the way, we met in Shinjuku, Kabuki-cho. I went to Kabuki-cho for the first time in a long time. I got lost and strayed off into the terrible place! No, interesting place! There were so many hosts, you know, Japanese hosts, on the street. Maybe, more than a hundred hosts were there. They stood in front of the shop and called out for passersby to come in. It was my first experience of meeting real hosts. It was the world I’ve never known, so it was kind of exciting. Fortunately they weren’t my cup of tea (^▽^)

I did it!

I attended a class at university last weekend and I was finally freed from the assignment. This time I tackled the assignment seriously, so I was really satisfied with my work and it was rated highly. The teacher said that my plan and model were the most beautiful in the class. I did it! A good evaluation motivated me to study hard and I’m working on the next assignment straightaway. Next is to plan the space for praying by the sea, in a green field, or in the town. I chose the sea because it seems interesting to make a model. How will I plan it? The problem is that the teacher of this course was the man who rated me low in his previous class, so I definitely want him to think better of me. I’ll do it! 

By the way, once I start studying architecture, I tend to totally concentrate on the assignment, so it is little hard to continue these bogs. I still need a lot of time to write these blogs…, but I’ll try to continue writing blogs as well as I can, even if it’s once a week, or if it’s very short.

It's no good just thinking about it

Recently I haven’t had enough time to write this blog, since I‘m going to take a class at university the weekend after next. I have to do some assignments before the class, but they are progressing at a snail’s pace. Something’s got to give. I should tackle the assignments right now!!! 

This time I’m tackling the assignments pretty seriously, and I'm reading more books than usual, so I’m rather confused. My ideas have not come together yet. In such a case, the teacher always says that you should move your hand. Yeah, it’s no good just thinking about it; I have to draw sketches. 
Well, it’s time to start drawing. 

Maybe these blogs will be short for a while.

Reading

Now I’m reading a book that helps me understand and resolve my university assignments. Recently I haven’t been reading books as much as I used to, but I felt I should read a wide variety of books. The book I’m reading is an introduction to the arts. In the book, the writer says things I’ve never thought about. For example; 

Modern art started after the death of God. 
A work is not worth it without the complement of a critic. 
How is a painting “a painting”? What is “a painting”? 

Umm, it’s too difficult to translate what he said. 
It’s also hard for me to write about this book, so I'll end there, but anyway he has a wide knowledge of the arts. Well, it’s a matter of course because he is an art university professor… 
When I read only one book, I thought I seemed to be intelligent, so I will become an intelligent person if I read many more books. 
Now I'm going back to reading! 

Oh, yes, the curtains were delivered! They are lovely, aren’t they?

at night

during the day

The Cove

by Amazon

Have you ever seen “The Cove”? 

Today I was greatly shocked to see a TV program by NHK. The title was “Live with whales” and it was about Taiji town in Wakayama prefecture where the movie called “The Cove” took place. As I watched it, I became angry and sad. No, I was filled with fury. 

Concerning whaling, there has been a difficult problem because whaling countries and anti-whaling countries could never agree on a mutual understanding due to different cultures. Well, now I mentioned “a mutual understanding“ but in this case, I thought that the Sea Shepherd did not try to understand the other side. Why do they accept a whale meat eating culture and leave the Taiji people as they are. Is thinking so because I’m Japanese? It comes to putting the blame on others eventually. 

Actually, when I was a child, I had relations with whales, because my father was a chief engineer of a whaling ship. He went fishing in the Antarctic Ocean and there was regularly whale meat in the freezer of my house. I was raised in such an environment, so I couldn’t treat the situation that Taiji people suffered as being nothing to do with me. If my father was alive, what would he say? 

Anyway, this TV program was food for thought. There is still an uncertain feeling in my heart.

Went to the dentist

Today I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. I have had my teeth cleaned three times a year for a long time and my dental hygienist has great skills, so my teeth are in good condition. 

Anyway, do you have trouble finding a good doctor? How do you look for a reliable doctor? Or a dentist, a physician, a dermatologist, an eye doctor, an animal doctor, etc. I always have a hard time looking for a doctor. Luckily, my brother-in-law is a dentist, so I asked him to introduce me to a good dentist and I could see a good one and a wonderful hygienist who is his wife. Well, I could see my brother-in-law but I somehow felt like I didn’t want to show the inside of my mouth to my close relative. Thanks to my sister’s husband, the dentist problem was solved. About a vet, an animal doctor who I took my dog to before moving here introduced me to a vet near my new place. However, I didn’t have any connections to other doctors, so there was nothing for it but to get information on the Internet. 
So far, I have been able to see a good doctor, but when I need to look for other departments, it’ll be a pain in the neck to get information.

Had a nice day

I think that when I have a delicious meal, I am the happiest. 
Yesterday my friend and I met for lunch at a restaurant in Jiyugaoka. It was a restaurant recommended by my friend, and is called “Shutters”, which is famous for barbecued spareribs and apple pie. Wow! Both of them are my favorite. I’m certain that their lunch is the best I’ve ever had. Their lunch course included a salad, a soup, two spareribs, pasta, an apple pie and coffee or tea. It cost 2000 yen. It’s cheap for that amount of food, isn’t it? I was really really really satisfied. I want to take everyone there, my husband, my sister, my nieces and nephew and my friends. If so, I can enjoy the lunch many times. 

After lunch, we moved to Gakugei-Daigaku to go shopping. My friend had been looking for a party dress and had her eye on a nice one with a Ajisai (hydrangea) pattern. It suited her very well and at last she bought it today. I wasn’t going to buy any clothes, but I bought two lovely T-shirts and a beautiful cardigan which were bargains. 

I had a really nice day!

My dog's attitude toward me

I went to the hospital as usual yesterday. I woke up at 4:30 am, walked my dog for one hour and left home with my husband at 6:30 am. Why so early? That’s because he drives me to the hospital on his way to the office and I can come home in the morning. I think that if I left home thirty minutes later, I would come home a couple of hours later. Yeah, it’s just “the early bird catches the worm”, but waking up very early is really hard for me, and for my dog. When I shook him up this morning, he seemed not to understand what was going on, and it was hard to take him out. 

With this as an introduction, today’s main topic is my dog’s attitude toward me. When I came home today, he sat on the sofa with taking any notice of me. I called him from the entrance, but he kept looking the other way with his eyes open. He looked like he was angry with me. Was that because I woke him up early and let him stay at home? It’s not a very unusual thing. Well, his attitude toward me is always this way, but he was cruel today. I don’t know why, but when I come home, he never comes to meet me at the entrance, and of course he never wags his tail at me, but this is only in my case. Never, never, never!!! Although at least he just took a look at me, he completely ignored me today. Why? Someone told me that he must trust me better than anyone, but I want him to show his feelings of confidence with his attitude. I really envy my husband being met by my dog every day. 

Still, he's cute!

Went to the National Museum of Western Art

I went to the National Museum of Western Art with my niece who is an art university student the day before yesterday. Now they have an exhibition of Rembrandt “the quest for chiaroscuro” and we toured around there, but the main point was to examine the space around the museum. That’s because my university assignment I’m tackling now is to plan an annex to the museum in which I exhibit three sculptures of a modern sculptor.

Unfortunately, it rained a lot yesterday, so I couldn’t look over enough what I should do, but I discussed my assignment with my niece who studies sculpture, as we had cake sets in the museum cafe. Thanks to her, I decided to choose the sculptor, Ron Mueck, whose sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but their scale is disconcerting. One of his works “Standing Woman” is over four meters tall. When I saw it first in the picture, I was quite taken a back by the size, but I liked it very much. 

Now I’m working on planning the museum of Ron Mueck, and it has been decided that my niece will make miniature clays of Ron’s sculptures. It will look very nice if the miniatures are in my model, won't it? 

Oh, and yes, my niece came by my house and drew a picture of my dog for me. Just like the student of the art university, she captured his likeness quite easily.

by Aya

Shades

Golden Week is finally over. My husband had ten consecutive holidays and I couldn’t do much of my private business. 
During GW, we wanted to do some household chores that we cannot do on ordinary days, such as cleaning the veranda, but after all we didn’t do anything on some pretext or other. Oh my! 

There was one thing that I could settle during GW. That’s finding shades. I’d been troubled with the choice between drapes or blinds for my living room. Now there is only lace curtains there, but we have to save electricity, especially in the summer, so I decided to prepare something like a shade. My living room is very hot with the evening sun shining in. On searching for one, I disagreed with my husband. He is a 'curtain person' but I am a 'blind person'. Actually, I’ve yearned for a blind, so I decided to replace the lace curtains with blinds. I never thought he would disagree with me, but he wouldn’t budge an inch. Umm, I was in a fix! I tried to send for a blinds catalog and take him a house with blinds. So he gradually got to like blinds and said that I could do what I like. I’d won! 

Well, how do you think how it turned out in the end? Ha-ha, I ordered curtains. When I went to a furniture showroom, I found beautiful curtains. I thought that this is it!

A theme park

Recently we went to two theme parks to use a dog run that they have there. Whenever I visit a theme park, except a successful theme park such as Disneyland, I always feel somewhat sad, because they have become old and deserted. When I was a child, they used to be busy, but now they are quiet and only music travels in vain. Their facilities are antiquated and the paint has come off. The parks seem not to have been looked after for a long time. In fact, maybe they try to keep the park in good condition as hard as they can, but they don’t have enough budget to buy new equipment and keep it clean. 
Old > deserted > dropped receipts > cannot update equipment > deserted … It’s a downward spiral! Is there any good way to revive the parks? I don’t have any concrete ideas but I’m very interested in reviving the theme parks. If I had had some funds, I would purchase one of the theme parks and try to revive it. Actually, you can laugh about it now, but I applied for an application open to the public that invited the president of a local line to revive the line. Of course, I failed, but I was really interested in such a thing. Sure, I know “Easier said than done.”

Thanks to being empty, he could get the dog run to himself.

Mashiko Pottery Fair

We went to Mashiko town which is famous for pottery on the first day of Golden Week. The pottery fair I’ve been wanting to go just started that day. Mashito town is not in the Tohoku district but they also suffered from the Tohoku earthquake. When we drove into Mashiko town, we were surprised that almost all of the houses with tiled roofs were covered with a blue tarp and quite a lot of concrete block walls had crumbled. Besides that, a great deal of damage was done to the pottery. A lot of pottery was broken and I heard that if the pottery was being baked at the time of the earthquake, they would have touched and adhered to each other. They would be useless. 
We reached there at about 3 p.m. and there were many people in the town. The venue was along the main street and about fifty shops and five hundreds tents lined both sides of the street. We stopped in at the shops one after another. I looked for some dishes I could use for fish and found some good ones. I bought a bowl, too. I was not planning on buying a bowl, but I found a nice one at the charity corner and they said they were selling it for 1000 yen, though it was labeled “4200”. Lucky! I paid 2000 yen for it including a contribution. I was really satisfied with my shopping. 
According to Mashiko’s homepage, over sixty thousand people visit the fair everyday. I’m very happy for their success.

Speechless shock

The seven o’clock news by NHK made me really shocked. After the Tohoku earthquake, there have been a lot of things that made me angry with the government, TEPCO and the committees for nuclear power, such as the Nuclear Safety Commission and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, but today’s news was the worst ever for me. The news was about the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC). In today’s committee of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the NSC revealed that when the earthquake occurred, only a few investigators for an emergency measure were assembled on that day even though they have forty investigators. That’s because the NSC tried to contact them on with emails to their mobiles but they could not contact almost all of them and some who could receive the email could not get there because of stopped transportation. So, only a few people who were able to walk could gather at the office. What were their contingency plans? 
Furthermore, the NSC is supposed to dispatch the investigators to the spot immediately, but they dispatched only one member of staff. They didn't dispatch the investigators until a month after the earthquake. I couldn't believe it. For the clumsiness of the NSC’s response, the chairman said that he thought they had failed to respond well enough, and this reflected on themselves. As I heard it, I was speechless at his statement. 
As I mentioned before, there have been a lot of problems, but I thought they had tried as hard as they could but just not in the right way. However, the NSC did nothing. I understood why many people doubted the significance of the existence of the NSC. I want them to say that they will give back their remunerations and contribute them to the people who have suffered. I heard they received over ten million yen a year. 

It was too difficult for me to write about a thing like this. I tried to write it by consulting a dictionary. I wonder how far I can say what I think.

Weight problem

Recently I’ve been getting tired easily from walking. Today, first, I walked my dog after breakfast. Then I went to Harajuku to meet my friend and walked around. After my return home, I walked my dog again. So when I got home, I was too exhausted to do anything. Why have I been so tired? I know the reason. I’ve gained weight! I reached the weight I must not reach and I'm not losing it. Oh my God! I really have to try to lose weight. And yet I ate a bag of Kappa-ebisen alone as I watched TV. What on earth did I do? The problem is that there are some snacks in my house. I try not to buy snacks but my husband buys them for a midnight snack. Yeah, my husband is overweight! He always says that he wants to lose weight, but he never stops buying snacks. Once I threw away all the snacks that he had bought, but he started to buy them again after a while. What can I do to make him stop doing it? Oh, there’s another fat guy in my family. It’s my dog. He reached over eleven kilograms even though his vet recommended that I keep him under ten kilograms. Umm, we all have a weight problem! What will I do? It will be hard but I should try to be a good example by losing weight.

Nogawa Park

After yesterday’s rain, it was crisp weather today. We, my husband, our dog and I, went to Nogawa Park which we like very much. It is a really big park and has a lot of giant trees, and the Nogawa River runs through the park. We had McDonald’s hamburgers for breakfast, walked, played with a ball and lay on the grass. Of course, we took a lot of pictures. We enjoyed ourselves very much and our dog was the most satisfied maybe. He seemed to be very tired, so, on the way home, he fell asleep on the rear seat of the car, even though he usually hangs out of the car window. We are going there again during Golden Week, and we are going to take a lot of rice balls for breakfast and lunch. 

After supper, I watched Dr. House, the sixth episode. I tried to read the English subtitles but I was too tired to read them tonight. It’s better to go to bed early. My dear dog is waiting for me to go to bed with him.

Dr. House, again

My friend bought a bread maker and invited me to lunch. When I visited her place the room was filled with a good smell of fresh bread. She had baked it for me for when I visited. She also made a salad and some soup. The bread, salad and soup were all delicious! We really enjoyed lunch.


By the way, we Japanese call “a bread maker”, “a home bakery”. “Home bakery” is Japanese English, but it is a good name, isn’t it? What do English-speaking people imagine when they hear the words “Home bakery”? 


My corrector gave me an answer. To her, it means that someone is baking cakes and bread etc, in their home and selling them, there could be a shop at the front of the house where people come to buy their home baked goods. 


As I was saying, as we had lunch, we were talking about a TV show “Dr. House” as usual. Season 6 has not started to run in Japan, so I haven’t watched it yet, but she has already watched it in English. According to her, season 6 was really interesting. The first episode was especially good as the story had a bit of a different atmosphere from other episodes. She has wanted me to watch it as soon as possible. Of course I have wanted to watch it, so I made up my mind to borrow the DVDs from her and try to watch them in English. 
That night I watched the first episode immediately, with English subtitles. Even though I had prepared for the possibility, it was so hard for me to understand, but I got the gist of the story using my imagination. It was exactly as she said. Yeah, Dr. House was intriguing, as I had expected. Now I have been tackling the second episode.

iKnow!

I’ve been learning English words by using iKow!, an online English learning service. They have a lot of courses for learners’ various goals. It had been free for about two years but they started to charge for it this April. I guess they had accumulated the users' data, such as age, purpose, skill, how and when to learn and so on, by offering their service for free. The data helped them offer better and more sophisticated services. I think iKow! is an excellent service. Since I knew about iKow!, improving my vocabulary hasn’t bothered me at all, aside from remembering the words or not. I’ve tried to do it for one hour a day. 

Now I’m mainly enjoying tackling a TOEFL course because there are many words that appear in school textbooks, for example, mammal, reptile, molecule, hydrogen, equation, gravity, current, equator, tropical rain forest, conifer etc. I forgot or didn’t know most of them, so I can’t understand even a junior high school textbook. When I tried to do an SAT course, it was too much for me! They seemed to be magic formulas. 

Anyway, now I like learning English words. I have two nieces and one nephew, and they are students, so I always show them how useful iKow! is, but they never try it out, just as I didn't take any advice when I was a student.

I had my hair cut

I had my hair cut last Friday. It was a simple short hairstyle this time and I liked it very much. I’ve been wearing my hair short recently. Once it is short, I won’t let my hair get long again because it’s really easy to set my hair, but the problem is that I need to cut my hair very often and to choose a skillful hairdresser. I think that short hairstyles need a higher skill of cutting. 
Actually, I’m not a woman who is careful about my clothes or my makeup, but I am particular about my hairstyle. So, I was cautious in choosing a beauty salon and now I make a special trip to a beauty salon in Ginza, which takes over one hour. The salon was my friend’s recommendation. There must be some good beauty salons around my area, but I don’t have any information of which salons are good and I never want to go to a hair salon that doesn’t have a skillful hairdresser. 
Anyway, from the outside, this is a trivial matter… 

Well, my husband also had his hair cut yesterday. I always ask him to have the hair on top cut shorter but he doesn't. I wish he would count on the barber for his hairstyle.

Today's Lai - He likes drinking water like this.

Presentation

When I worked, I had a hard time presenting my arguments. It is not too much to say that the reason I quit my job was my poor presentation as a manager. I recognized that I was required to have a high level of presentation skills, but I could not become a good speaker. I deeply regretted that I had not seriously improved my presentation skills. 

Now as I watch a news conference of the government, the Atomic Energy Commission and TEPCO, I can only remember my failure. Virtually everyone of them had a really bad presentation. Their presentation content was incomprehensible and pointless, and there’s nothing concrete about their content, especially about the prime minister’s interview, but the biggest problem is not to have the power to appeal to people. I can’t feel their motivation, sincerity or a firm faith. Of course everyone is now working to rebuild, but I can’t feel it. I think the reason is their poor presentation skills. Well then, why? At the root of this problem is the Japanese Education system, I guess. I heard that in the U.S. children practice speaking in public from elementary school. Training one’s speech is absolutely important for children. Japanese like to copy Western society ways, but it is to be regretted that we had a different method in the educational aspect.

Nonsense!

It was a combined local election today and I went to vote in the Tokyo governatorial election. This time there were four strong candidates and I expected a close battle; so I looked forward to watching a newsflash on the election returns that started from 7:55 p.m. on NHK. At just 8:00 p.m. the announcer surprisingly said "the election closed at 8:00 p.m. and it's certain that the incumbent Governor of Tokyo, Mr. Ishihara, was elected for the fourth time." What? The vote counting hadn’t yet begin at that time. They said that they judged it by the result of their exit poll. It’s a common occurrence that they estimate the result from an exit poll, but today’s too early announcement was really nonsense. That was a mere competition which the media announced first, I thought. When Mr. ishihara gave an interview, he also pointed out this type of announcement. I didn’t vote for him, but I give him credit for speaking frankly like that. Now I listen to the news, but they cut the scene of Mr. Ishihara which indicated their odd way. 


Anyway, when I went to the zoo, I bought a stuffed Yabu-inu (bush) dog for Lai. I call it Yabu-chan. Lai liked it but now Yabu-chan is ...

Zoorasia; Yokohama Zoo.

I went to the zoo to take pictures with my friend the day before yesterday. We went to Yokohama Zoo and its popular name is Zoorasia. I heard that Zoorasia is a compound word of “zoo” and “eurasia”. They said that they exhibit seventy different kinds of animals, and there are four hundred animals in total. Their strong point is having a lot of rare animals like an okapi, an Asiatic lion and a douc langur. 

Douc langur

Actually, we were supposed to go there on April 5th, but my friend had a cold, so we went on the 7th. We were completely right in going on the 7th, because most of the elementary schools started back on the 6th. It was not crowded and we could watch the animals and take pictures leisurely. A little problem was that animals looked tired after the children’s spring vacation, so most of them were lying down or turned their backs to us. However, we had a really good time. 

Clouded Leopard's back

Sleeping Sumatran Tiger

Idle Polar Bear

I took more than two hundred pictures! The best photo from yesterday was a photo of the okapi. It was difficult to take photos of the monkeys or birds in their cage, but after getting the knack, I could take them well. I much prefer to take pictures of animals than views or flowers. I get the feeling that I’m going to get hooked on going to the zoo.

Red Panda

Steller's Sea Eagle

Bush dog: I love them!

Okapi

Chimpanzee

Cleaning

I used to hate cleaning but now “hate” has changed to “don’t like”. When I worked, I thought that it was a waste of time and labor to clean, but after retiring, cleaning up my place became not so bad. Especially after I moved to my current apartment, I like to keep my place clean. So do I like cleaning? No, I want to keep my place clean, but I don’t like cleaning. However, it was fine and warm today so I cleaned my place; vacuumed the rooms, mopped the floor and cleaned the windows. After that I felt really comfortable. 

The thing I don't like most is cleaning a wet area. I hate the slime of an outlet. I don’t know how often others clean a wet area but I am ashamed to say that I only clean a wet area once a month. I don't want to touch the slime so I try to postpone it as long as I can. Recently, I remembered my friend’s sister who died last year. I heard that she had neat habits and cleaned the outlet everyday. I couldn’t believe such a thing, but I have tried to do it since last month and found it a really good way of keeping a wet area clean. It doesn’t become slimy! Now I do it in only the kitchen sink but I will try it in the bathroom, too. 

Sorry, it was a little unclean topic today.

A community center

A new community center opened near my place on April 1st. It is one of Tama City's community centers and it includes a cultural center, a library and a children’s hall. I’ve been really looking forward to it opening since it was built. It has gently curved exterior and rooftop garden, and I had been interested in its design. So I visited it immediately. Wow, it was a fantastic place, as I had expected. The exterior of the building is concrete but they use a lot of wood inside, so I felt comfortable and warm. I liked it very much. Actually, I am just starting my fourth year of university so I have decided to study at the center as much as I can because when I’m at home I tend to watch television or do something other than studying. I really need to study hard this year. So, to put my plan into action, I will try to go to bed before midnight, wake up at seven o’clock and finish walking my dog before nine o’clock. After that, I will go to the center to study. I will do housework later for the time being. I wonder if I will do such a thing… 

Spring

My corrector gave me a kind message which bolstered up my spirits. I changed my way of thinking. I think I will never forget what happened but shouldn’t dwell on it. 





Today I walked my dog, Lai, with my husband after a long 
time. He always tries to avoid walking but he followed me
today. Lucky! I can carry my camera and take a lot of pictures!
When walking Lai, I want to take pictures but it is pretty difficult to do it with Lai. So I was happy today, but Lai seemed to be a little unhappy. It seemed that Lai found it hard to walk because Lai and I make a perfect pair but he doesn’t. Lai walked as he took a look at my husband dubiously. What a pity! 
Thanks to Lai, or my husband, I could take many pictures of spring flowers today. I especially like magnolia, spirea, 
Japanese quince and of course cherry blossoms. 
Spring is beautiful, isn’t it? It seems a change from 
monochrome to color. 
If I didn’t have hay fever, I would like spring more and more.