Recently, I have been studying about about American politics. The reason being that I am going to take a very hard test next year. That test is called the Foreign Service Exam. If you want to join the American Foreign Service, you have to take that test. My ALT position here ends in August, 2006, and immediately after that I want to find another ALT job somewhere in Japan, but my long-term goals are to become a Foreign Service Officer (FSO). Being an FSO can be tough at times, but I think it will be an amazing job. Most FSOs work at American embassies oversees. An embassy is like a small country, so there are a lot of interesting jobs to do. For example, the Public Affairs Officer is the voice of America in other countries. Everyday they go in front of the foreign media and hold press conferences on America policy. Political Officers have to know both foreign countries and America very well. They hold meetings with foreign politicians and report to Washington. Economic Officers are always looking for American business opportunities in foreign countries. They have to know how to identify emerging markets. Consular Officers are at the front line of the embassy. They meet with hundreds of foreigners and Americans everyday. Management Officers are the overseers of the embassies. From arranging a presidential visit to setting up the embassy's information management systems, they have to me jacks-of-all-trades. Of all those, I want to become a Management Officer. Working all over the world seems very interesting, but the Foreign Service Exam is very hard, so I will study hard! I have to know about American politics, world affairs, economics, management, and even math. I will work hard and do my best for sure!
Journal for 2005-6-29 Wed.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
This morning I added 1 song to my Lyrics Worksheet. Signe suggested that I write instructions on how to use the worksheet, so after I entered in the song, I wrote an explination of the worksheet and a simple to read instruction sheet on how to use it. I hope that from now on people will find it easier to understand. The rest of the day I spent continuing to write out and study the U.S. Constitution. I am almost finished with the section on the U.S. Congress!
Journal for 2005-6-28 Tue.. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
My classes today were good as always. I prepared for the Shimane Prefectural High School Student English Seminar (CHESS) today. I coordinated with the other ALTs in my group. I am a little nervous, but we will have a great time for sure! The rest of the time I spent studying the U.S. Constitution. The part I studied today was on the U.S. Congress (Article 1). I learned how a bill becomes a law! (Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2)
Journal for 2005-6-27 Mon.. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was a little busy. I only had three classes, but I had other work to do. I am going to the Shimane Prefecture High School Student English Seminar called CHESS next week. I will be the group leader of 9 high school kids. Our group's theme is "Saturn." This morning, I mailed off postcards to all of them, and wrote a short play about Saturn. I also entered 3 songs into my Lyrics Worksheet.
Journal for 2005-6-24 Fri.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I really studied today. All day long, I was researching The Constitution of the United States. I am writing it out verbatim in order to help remember it. I am embarressed to say that there are a lot of things I didn't know about it. I have also subscribed to some (free) email newsletter on US and World foreign affairs. I want to subscribe to Time, but in Japan a subscription costs over $200! It's too expensive!
Journal for 2005-6-23 Thu.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Nothing special happened today. My classes were OK, but the 7th grade boys are slowly becoming worse and worse. In the middle of class today, 2 7th grade boys continually didn't listen to the teacher, were noisy, and disruptive. I don't know what we can do with these boys that are always causing problems... In my free time, I made the song selection list on my Lyrics Worksheet A LOT cooler.
Journal for 2005-6-22 Wed.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was hot! Everyone was tired because of the heat. I taught the 8th grade elective English class by myself today since Ms. Mishima was at the town music festival with the brass band students. We are still working on translating "The Giving Tree." Everyone did great! There weren't vey many people left in the 9th grade class today, so we played a Hangman-like game. The always brazen 9th grader, ***** ********, did really well.
Journal for 2005-6-21 Tue.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was the same as always. In the 9th grade elective English class, Ms. Mishima introduced the Jeopardy Game to the kids. They all really loved it. In the 7th grade elective English class we played Telephone. Today was ful of fun classes. In the time left over I implemented a search engine for English and Japanese for my Lyrics Worksheet creator!
Journal for 2005-6-20 Mon.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was an average Monday. I taught 4 classes. Everyone here was really tired, since the temperature has been high all day long. In my spare time, I have been studying for the Foreign Service Exam. I have to know the US Government and History really well. I also have to know about other world governments and political issues, so I have a lot more to learn!
Journal for 2005-6-17 Fri.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
TGIF! The kids at Akagi JHS have been really upbeat this week. I don't know the reason why, but it has made me upbeat too! We are having money troubles at home. In October we have to take the car in for it's biennial check up. Since the car isn't a yellow plate (cheaper cars with lower standards) we will have to pay upwards of 200,000 yen (about $2000) for the check up that is required by Japanese law. Paying our student loans and credit card debt every month has been getting us down too...
Journal for 2005-6-16 Thu.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was relaxing. We started translating "The Giving Tree" in the 9th grade elective English class, the same way we did yesterday with the 8th grade elective class. I feel that those 4 smart kids really understood most of it. In my spare time I inputted 2 Beatles songs into the Lyrics Worksheet. I have started to study for the Foreign Service Written Exam. After JET, I want to become a Foreign Service Officer for the USA.
Journal for 2005-6-15 Wed.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was good. The students were really lively in class, and that made me lively, too. In the 8th grade elective English class we started translating Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree." I loved "The Giving Tree" when I was a kid. When I was in college I was in The Bookie one day with Signe and I saw the book, so I decided to pick it up and read it. By the end I was full out sobbing in the middle of the bookstore. I forgot just how amazingly moving this story was.
Journal for 2005-6-14 Tue.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I'm sorry for the hard to understand journal, yesterday. *-_-* Today was good. I translated the lyrics of Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" fo my 9th grade elective English class. Afterwards, I uploaded them into my Lyrics Worksheet. Ms. Mishima used that page to make a worksheet! Today was the first time it was actually put into use. Ms. Mishima said it was really easy to understand. I was so happy. Something I created has become useful!
Journal for 2005-6-13 Mon.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was a good day. I only taught two classes. The rest of the time I finished coding my blog posting software. From now on I can send the same post to two blogs with the click of a button. Unfortunately, when I was in testing I ended up breaking my Blogger account blog. So, even though I can post to two blogs, I can only see the one that posted to my Live Journal account. What can ya do?!
Journal for 2005-6-10 Fri.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
This weekend, I went to Tsuwano with Signe and some friends. On Saturday, we went to the Firefly Festival in Hatagasako. I had never seen a firefly before that night. Where I lived in the west coast of America, it is hard for fireflies to survive. It was really amazing to see thousands of fireflies light up around me. On Sunday we made Japanese "washi" paper in Tsuwano. "Washi" is easy to make, but it was very interesting to learn about it.
Notes: - "method" is either "basic" for Basic HTTP Auth, or "digest" for Digest HTTP Auth. If no method is sent, basic will be tried first, then digest if basic fails. - This does NOT support WSSE since neither Blogger or LJ support WSSE at this time.
Journal for 2005-6-9 Thu.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was fun. I went and taught at Iinan High School again. I saw a lot of familiar faces. I didn't know this, but Iinan High School has dormatories. What that means is that a small amount of students came from far away to studt at Iinan High School! Those students live in the dorms everyday. Crazy, huh?
Journal for 2005-6-8 Wed.. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
It was a good day today. Since the Volleyball club was still away at the sports meet today, all we did in class was review and play games. We played a fun Hint on the Wall game with the 9th graders. In the game, you put up 10 sentences on the walls around the room and the students make groups. One person in the group writes while the others go around the room, memorize the sentence and recite it to the writer. Once all ten hints are written down, the groups figure out the answer. For example, "Who is the fastest in the race?," etc. (see above)
Journal for 2005-6-7 Tue.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I didn't have any work to do today since the sports meet was on. So, I spent the day writing my monthly Trev Report. I have been writing them about once a month since 1996. After I finished that I worked on data entry for my Lyrics Worksheet. I still have a lot of Beatles and Carpenters songs to add to it. I hope that this tool becomes something that many teachers will find useful.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to your monthly Trev Report, wherein you learn a lot about what Trevor has been up to in the last month or so. And now on to the report!
Trev's Lovelife --------------- Signe has had a great month. This was the month we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary and for it I got Signe a nice watch, and she got us a really cool lamp for the living room. She also went off to Kyoto for a 5-day Kimono Workshop and Shopping Tour that was organized by a kimono buyer in America. She made a lot of great friends and had a wonderful time. Signe also hosted her annual garden party to a smashing success. Many people showed up and the weather was good, so the garden was showcased well. Way to go, Signe!
Trev's Work ----------- I'm back into the usual routine here at work. I teach anywhere from 2-4 classes a day, and I am starting to go to elementary schools again as well. I will begin recording my CATV English Conversation Class (http://www.trevreport.org/eikaiwa.shtml) again starting this month. That is always fun and challenging. I am still planning on getting my TEFL certificate (http://www.onlinetefl.com/) so I will have a better chance of getting an English teaching position come Fall 2006. This summer I will also start to study for the Foreign Service Written Exam in hopes of (eventually) getting a Foreign Service Officer position with the State Department (http://www.state.gov/). As I have stated before, my plan is to continue taking the exam until I get in. As long as I can get a job in the interim here in Japan, I'll be OK.
Trev's Computers ---------------- Lately I have been infatuated with this concept of building web applications called AJAX (http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php), so I have been thinking of a good project I could use to learn Javascript and the AJAX process (while still utilizing my Perl skills) and it came to me when I was preparing a worksheet for class one day. The worksheet was to be used with a song, there was the lyrics of the song on one side in English with some words left blank to be filled in by students, and the Japanese translation on the other side with some words underlined to be used as hints. I often make these worksheets and reuse them, but I thought wouldn't it be neat if I could make a web application that could do it for me and all I would have to do is select the blanked out words and print it out. So I made it. A Lyrics Worksheet (http://www.trevreport.org/lyrics/). It works great. I am still populating the database with songs I have lyrics and translations for (which is great for practicing kanji), but it has already provided very useful. I really like creating useful things and I hope that a lot of people can utilize this application.
Trev's Japanese --------------- I finished the JET Programme (http://www.jetprogramme.org/) Advanced Self-Study Japanese course, and I'm pretty sure I passed it. I have applied to take the course in Translation and Interpretation next year, but it is very high level and I might not pass the entry test. We will see. As for other things. I have been translating things in my free time, like The Legend of Ban Ryu Gorge (http://www.trevreport.org/trans/kami01.htm). Ban Ryu Gorge is a place we went camping at in a nearby town a few weekends ago. Of course, I am also studying by entering in lyrics into the lyrics database as well. And the Galactic Pharmacy (http:// www.trevreport.org/blog/2005/03/galactic-pharmacy.html) translation project is coming along well, as well.
Trev's Art Committee -------------------- The JAGS (http://www.trevreport.org/JAGS/) Art Show was this month and it was a smashing success. I was there for setup, the opening, and break down at the closing. For the one week we were at the Shimane Prefectural Art Museum we had a little over 1,200 guests viewing the artworks on display by the foreign population of Shimane Prefecture. I had a great time with the committee and look forward to being involved with it next year as well.
Trev's Activities ----------------- Signe and I recently finished watching the first season of Lost (http://www.4815162342.com/) and I have to admit it was awesome. I am very much looking forward to the next season. Speaking of next seasons, the new season of Battlestar Galactica (http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/) is coming out in the next month or so and I'll be looking forward to watching that on a weekly basis as well. As for movies, I recently watched "Napoleon Dynamite" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/) and highly recommend it for its quirky humor value. I also watched Episode III (off the Internet) and both Signe and I are really looking forward to watching it on the big screens here in Japan when it comes out next month. I have been reading the Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton (http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk/) lately as well. It comes highly recommended by many people whose taste in science fiction I greatly respect, and I am loving it so far. I haven't watched any anime at all lately, and in fact I recently cancelled my subscriptions to Newtype (http://pc.webnt.jp/index.php) and Afternoon (http://www.afternoon.co/jp/) to save money, since I wasn't reading them al that much anyway. I'm sure I will get back into anime sometime in the future when I live in a place with an anime club that I can get involved in. The big thing I have been doing lately is going camping on the weekends. A few weekends back I hiked to the top of Mt. Kotobiki (http:// www.iinan.jp/kanko/mt_kotobiki.htm) with Matt from Kakeya and Rebecca from Kisuki. And the next weekend we went to the Ban Ryu Gorge in Misato with Matt, Rebecca, Signe, and Emily from Nita. It was wonderful to get out and hike and swim in fresh water, and just play in the nature. It is very refreshing, especially when most of your days you are sitting at a desk behind a computer.
Trev's One-Point Japanese Lesson -------------------------------- So you want to learn Japanese, huh? That's great! How about looking into some adjectives!
There are two types of adjectives in Japanese. "i-adjectives" and "na-adjectives," or Nounal Adjectives. Let's look at the first type again.
i-adjectives are called that because they all end in "i." For example:
utsukushi-i - beautiful tanoshi-i - fun ooki-i - big omoshiro-i - interesting
To conjugate these i-adjectives into the negative form is really easy! All you have to do is change the "i" into "kunai:"
utsukushi-kunai - not beautiful tanoshi-kunai - not fun ooki-kunai - not big Can you guess what the negative form of omoshiro-i is?
Until next time, keep studying and work hard!
Well, that's about it for this edition of the Trev Report. Feel free to drop me a line sometime. I always enjoy hearing from you.
Journal for 2005-6-6 Mon.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
Today was busy. I taught 4 classes. Even though it was Monday, everyone was in high spirits. Perhaps it is because tomorrow is the Unnan/Iinan Sports Meet. The sports meet is an event where all the junior high schools in the area compete with each other. In the little free time I had I entered lyrics into my Lyrics Worksheet. I am learning some new kanji by entering in the Japanese translations of songs.
Journal for 2005-6-3 Fri.. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akana Ele.
I had a good day. I was teaching at Akana Elementary School all day today. This is that first time I am teaching elementary school this academic year, so we reviewed how to do self-introductions. The kids did a great job. Whenever I go to elementary schools I have to do a lot of exercise. Playing with the younger kids is especially tiring. Around noon, I went over to the CATV station to have a planning meeting about our recording this month. I was happy because I got to say a lot of Japanese today.
Journal for 2005-6-2 Thu.. Weather: Cloudy Plan: Akagi JHS
Nothing really bad happened today. I spent most of the day programming my Lyrics Worksheet. I am writing it in Javascript and Perl. I know Perl, so that part in simple, but I haven't done any Javascript before, so there are a lot of things I just don't know about that is making me very frustrated. Moreover, I am finding it hard to find good Javascript help site on the Internet (as opposed to Perl, where there was a wealth of consistant information when I was learning). Grr! >*<
Journal for 2005-6-1 Wed.. Weather: Sunny Plan: Akagi JHS
I got a lot done today. I taught the 8th grade elective English class by myself today because Ms. Mishima was in Hiroshima prepping for her wedding. We had a small conversation. The students did great. The rest of the time I spent programming my Lyrics Worksheet on the Internet. I'm almost finished with it. After that all I have to do is data entry.
